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AceofKnaves said:
Heh.
Want an even hotter take?
Cameron’s best movie was the original Terminator, and he’s been on a slow-and-steady creative decline ever since, a decline that stopped being slow and steady in the mid 90s.

And perhaps hottest take of all?
While I am somewhat charmed by The Fifth Element, Chris Tucker’s performance makes it impossible for me to rewatch. He’s just . . . the worst. The only time I ever enjoyed him onscreen was when Sam Jackson beat him to death with a bat in Jackie Brown.
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Agree about Cameron.

I really like The Fifth Element a lot, but it's also in the list of movies I like a lot that I, for any number of reasons, just cannot enjoy re-watching. I don't know if it's specifically Chris Tucker (although he is definitely a chore), or just more a sense of 'I've seen it and it has nothing for me on a re-watch' kind of a thing.
 
Damien said:
But even if you accept the idea that Titanic is a great film (again, I do not), what has he done since then that's even worth talking about?
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Oh, nothing at all, agreed. In fact, I kind of wonder if it wasn't Kathryn and other collaborators who were major components for some of his best stuff. Sort of like Lucas there, where other folks (including HIS ex-wife) saved Star Wars from itself. And of course when he finally went solo auteur we saw the results.

Titanic I sort of give him credit on because while i don't like it, plenty of folks do, and discarding my own taste I understand why. It's doing a thing, and it does that thing reasonably well within the goals it sets for itself. I also respect the film or basically being a con-job where he got a film company to finance his actual dream which is underwater exploration. Jim Cameron loves the ocean way WAY more than he loves making movies. Trick a studio to finance your pet hobby? That shit is just funny.
 
Damien said:
I really like The Fifth Element a lot, but it's also in the list of movies I like a lot that I, for any number of reasons, just cannot enjoy re-watching. I don't know if it's specifically Chris Tucker (although he is definitely a chore), or just more a sense of 'I've seen it and it has nothing for me on a re-watch' kind of a thing.
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I hand it to Chris for taking that character all the way to the wall. He was a young dude in Hollywood and I think he could have followed (and kind of did, though not as successfully) on an Eddie Murphy or Will Smith track. But Ruby Rod is such a cartoon, and Chris really did it, even though that character probably cost him a better career.
AceofKnaves said:
Also it’s a rare miss for Gary Oldman, performance-wise. Don’t know if I can call it “bad acting”, but it’s his least-good acting I can think of.
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I think, given Ruby Rod, we kind of have to chalk this up to the director. That whole film is very French, and the French, at least a cross-section of their directors, are not known for subtle characters (looking at you, The Substance).
 
Lucas was my first thought for a comparison as well. He definitely had a vision, but he DESPERATELY needed people other than himself to put it all together. I actually feel similarly about Peter Jackson. I feel like Lord of the Rings would have been SIGNIFICANTLY worse if there weren't a lot of people on set telling him 'no' a lot. Look at The Hobbit.

Re: Chris Tucker; I just don't like him in anything. To be clear, I don't DISLIKE him. I more.. nothing.. him. He won't stop me from watching a film, but I've also never gotten the tiniest bit more interested in a film because Tucker was going to be in it. So I'm already starting at a baseline of disinterest for him, which makes the over-the-top performance a bit much for me.
 
The only nice thing I can say about Titanic is that I suppose it is a technically well-made film.
It’s also second to the bottom for me of fucking awful Leo diCrapio performances, just above his smug, vacant work in Romeo+Juliet. Titanic is definitely the most “oooooh I wanna punch him” film. The other performances are good, but he’s just such an anchor of shit and he exposes all the garbage of the script. It’s just a big, dumb movie. If the “teen romance” angle wasn’t in there, I think more folks would see it for what it is.


JakeEkiss said:
(looking at you, The Substance
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Ah, and see I love The Substance, it’s my second-favorite film of 2024, right after Nosferatu.
 
Damien said:
Look at The Hobbit.
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TBF to Peter, from what little behind the scenes I've seen, I cannot fathom a guy who wanted to be the director on that film LESS than him. I don't get the impression he was arrogant on those so much as just done. He'd finished doing Tolkien, he just couldn't escape the gravity well.
 
AceofKnaves said:
who ruined the Clash of the Titans remake
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He had help though. I think Clash of the Titans was a remake where I actually wanted them to use the same script, but I dunno... Even the monsters mostly left me disinterested. I LOOOOOVED the original, mostly for the monsters. So I just wanted a COTT for modern audiences. I guess it was since it sucked.
AceofKnaves said:
Heh.
Want an even hotter take?
Cameron’s best movie was the original Terminator, and he’s been on a slow-and-steady creative decline ever since, a decline that stopped being slow and steady in the mid 90s.
Click to expand...
I actually kinda think that's his best sometimes too. For me, it's nearly a threeway tie with that, Aliens, and Abyss. I really think everything after Abyss wasn't necessary, and it's definitely my favorite movie he's made, as much as I love Aliens and feel Terminator is a classic.
AceofKnaves said:
And perhaps hottest take of all?
While I am somewhat charmed by The Fifth Element, Chris Tucker’s performance makes it impossible for me to rewatch.
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This take is fucking tepid to me, as I feel the exact same way. I never got into the movie at all, but Tucker is the part I actively dislike. Even though I enjoy doing impressions of him.
AceofKnaves said:
He’s just . . . the worst. The only time I ever enjoyed him onscreen was when Sam Jackson beat him to death with a bat in Jackie Brown.
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He was okay in Friday, though Fifth Element made it less tolerable. I never watched his Jackie Chan movies. But yeah, his bit in Jackie Brown is my favorite thing he's done.
Damien said:
Lucas was my first thought for a comparison as well. He definitely had a vision, but he DESPERATELY needed people other than himself to put it all together. I actually feel similarly about Peter Jackson. I feel like Lord of the Rings would have been SIGNIFICANTLY worse if there weren't a lot of people on set telling him 'no' a lot. Look at The Hobbit.
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Maybe Jackson got that way too, and I feel King Kong is a better example (as much as I DID actually enjoy it), but Hobbit apparently was more of a studio mandate than a passion project. It was to be a two film thing done by Del Toro but he bailed, and probably rightfully so, and the studios forced Jackson, and everyone else apparently, to do it as three. The first movie was split between a few studios so new line wanted TWO sequels to get more profit. It apparently did the complete opposite to the New Zealand film industry that LOTR did, and even McKellan broke down and sobbed on set. It apparently was a horrible experience that Jackson wanted to be over as soon as possible.
 
AceofKnaves said:
Heheheh fair enough.

I love Re-Animator as well, and that is not subtle.
🤣
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Yeah like, Substance for me falls into the space where it's a movie I might never watch again, I can't say that I especially enjoyed it per se, and I'd be very careful who I recommended it to, but I'm glad I experienced it as an art piece.
 
AceofKnaves said:
Also it’s a rare miss for Gary Oldman, performance-wise. Don’t know if I can call it “bad acting”, but it’s his least-good acting I can think of.
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WOW. That's a hot take. I loved Gary Oldman's performance. I even liked Chris Tucker's. The only part of him that I thought was weird that it was so pronounced that it was a bit jarring to not have had it all along.

The Fifth Element is a joyful masterpiece and y'all are scrooges.
 
Good point about the cosplay thing, though to be fair, I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that it's not quite as easy to make a convincing Na'vi cosplay. Not only would prosthetics be needed, but lots of blue paint and a bodysuit, which doesn't always look good, and even then, the proportions are off. Not that people haven't pulled off harder cosplays, but still. I guess it is kinda telling that nobody goes to, or really remembers, the human characters in those films, other than maybe Quaritch, and they immediately turned him into a Na'vi too.

Fifth Element is a not-so-guilty pleasure. It's a bonkers movie, almost a live-action anime in some parts, and unabashedly European, even to a fault. I'd say Chris Tucker's character is one of the better instances of a sidekick being so annoying that he doubles back around again to being fun. But it works for the character- he's a larger than life radio host, and he's such a jarring opposite from how grounded and dour many of the other characters are that it works. He's in just enough of the movie that it doesn't make me hate it. Same with Gary Oldman; it's just a ridiculous part, but I think the reason it works at all is because of Oldman- anyone else in that role and it could easily have been such a nothing villain. But because of him, I always forget that he and Corbin don't ever actually interact in the movie.

I'm afraid I'll have to pull out the old "Pardon me, good sir?!" on the Peter Jackson slander as well. As others have stated, the Hobbit movies were basically a hostage situation with the poor guy. I don't think it was so much nobody was telling him no, it was that he wasn't able to tell the studio no. Those movies aged the poor guy more than the LOTR movies did, I think you could argue. But what isn't an argument is that the LOTR movies wouldn't be anywhere near as well done as they are without the dedication of Peter, Fran, and Philippa, who were passionate enough to know not only what worked, but what could be done without. The poor guy was done such a disservice on those Hobbit movies. I'd have loved to have seen Del Toro's take on it, though I do fear that, whether they turned out well or not, it would've brought him away from the more artsy fare that he does so well.
 
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