Blaine23

Well, to be fair to Anderson, Owen's pretty busy running around w/ Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and just about anybody else who'll pay him some good hard green. I think Anderson's the real force there. Owen's writing is good, but it's also obvious that he adds such lines to most his roles - there's no way his character in Shanghai Noon was that funny (or typically Owen Wilson-ish) before he started changing things. It's getting sorta easy to spot his "adds", plus its sterotyping. Anderson you hear in all of the other characters - and is also completely responsible for the visual tone, editing, and general all around "feel" of his movies. Hell, the music used in Rushmore and Tennenbaums alone are enough for me to salute him. Besides, you know you'd kill a yak to work with the badassness of Bill Murray over the Wilson Bros. As to the Eastwood thing... as much as I love his best - Unforgiven, Mystic River, Josey Wales (easily my favorite western), A Perfect World... But after the one-two suck punch of Blood Work and Space Cowboys... He also did some other schlock novel crap like Absolute Power and True Crime before that. It just doesn't seem fair to other directors to put him in that category.. his hits are far rarer than his misses, to me. But he is the ultimate cowboy, regardless.

Thin Blue Line is awesome. I saw 2 other docs thios year that I thought were pretty riveting - Stevie and Capturing the Friedmans. I can reccommend both of those pretty highly. I also forgot to mention a few other film directors (actually I forgot tons - Hitchcock, Peckinpah!)... but a few more emerging directors whose work I think is pretty incredible - Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums, Bottle Rocket), Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and Mark Romanek (1 Hour Photo). All of those guys except for Anderson are pretty much music video prodigies. There's some pretty cool DVDs of their stuff out now... I'd reccommend them too. Another underrated master I forgot to mention. Peter Weir - Austrailian and almost always top notch. Not necessarily predictable either. The Truman Show. Dead Poet's Society. Fearless. Master & Commander.

I actually like Michael Moore's docs, but anybody so political charged and one-sided is going to draw fierce criticism... usually for being both of those things. Roger & Me is an excellent, intensely watchable documentary about a subject that any American should be able to relate to. What citizens have to do in order to survive after "the plant" closes... anybody that's actually been to Flint, Michigan can easily see the damages that occur when a major company moves its production to Mexico. A good documentary should show you things that effect you. As far as his other works, I agree they've been lesser... but I enjoyed them, too. Why are we discussing a documentary director?... entirely different thing than a feature director. Edited to add - No need to respond... this will veer into a downward spiral of politically themed crap... let's just say I liked his docs and the rest of you guys hate him. Either way, he's not a feature director. And there are absolutely far too few nekkid women in his flicks.

One more thing - Anybody who wants to see the work of a trendsetting talent in his big breakthrough film - should go rent (or buy like me) City of God when it comes out on June 8th on DVD. Incredible story, amazing pacing... it's so good, it's already being openly aped by Tony Scott in Man On Fire. Awesome flick... best I saw last year.

My favorite directors - Like MSW - The Coen Bros. are incredible. Their ability to bring characters like those Raising Arizona, Fargo, Lebowski - and my personal favorite, Miller's Crossing. Stanley Kubrick. Clockwork Orange. Full Metal Jacket. 2001. The Shining. Dr. Strangelove. Spartacus. One of the most powerful directors of all time. Period. Orson Welles. I could watch Citizen Kane daily. Cameron Crowe - Sure, some of his films are bit too lite... but Almost Famous is probably my personal favorite film ever. Spot on perfect movie to me. Terry Gilliam - So incredible... if he only ever made Brazil, he'd still be one of the most incredible visualists ever. Scorcese - an obvious choice, but an undeniable talent as a master of film. Goodfellas. Mean Streets. Francis Ford Coppola - The Godfather I & II. Apocolypse Now. The Conversation. Not much else. Speilberg - tough one for me. As much as I love his best - his worst is responsible for alot of the soulless crap we receive daily disguised as "blockbusters". His best - Jaws. Close Encounters. Schindler's List. Empire of the Sun. Ridley Scott - unlike most action directors, he has range for days. And every shot he makes sets the tone for the next 5 years of film. Blade Runner. Gladiator. Thelma & Louise. Alien. There's alot of other directors whose films I love, but I could never place in my "best" category - some because of not enough work, others because of an uneven track record. I'll probably see each of their films... but I'm not quite ready to put them up there with the best. Tarantino, Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee, Verhoven, Donner, Shyamalan, Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, David Fincher, Michael Mann, James Cameron, Ang Lee, Danny Boyle, Bryan Singer, Mike Judge, Gore Verbinski, and many others... Then I have what I think is the worst of that list. Michael Bay - Bruckheimer's Golden Boy. Wonderful Commerical director. Has never made a movie I'd want to see twice. Sometimes even once. No concept of story, no originality, no emotion, terrible with actors. Never fails to deliver completely soulless, glossy crap. Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin - Michael Bay but not as good visually. Just f'ing terrible. Jan De Bont - Same category... was an incredible DP... should've stayed one. Simon West - for god's sake, he made Con Air and Tomb Raider... on purpose! Why on Earth is he on your list, EXO?

If you liked the Evil Dead movies... and you're the kinda guy that picks up the Dukes of Hazzard Season 1 set... then you'll probably dig it.

Eh... Western culture NEVER, ever, ever makes sexual objects out of young women. I've never seen any barely dressed teens on Euro & US magazines or seen them on TV... or in music videos... or in movies... or, well, everywhere. Yeah... right. Most models are waaaay under legal age. Any usually very underdressed. Same goes for most our TV, movie, and pop stars. Western culture only seems to get really offended when young women are sexualized in an animated context. Seems a weird point to get stuck on, but that's the beauty of America. It doesn't have to make any sense.

Your point is good, but it is also painting anybody who's ever worked in the line with a pretty wide brush, JSA. It's has its merits, but it isn't always true. In the case of Peter Jackson, in particular - I would find his "inability" to direct actors and rely on special effects could have ever turned out a film as good as Heavenly Creatures. And to be back on topic - Starship Troopers may suck, but can anyone tell me how my favorite lady from Nip/Tuck looks in it? She's almost always partially nude on that show... it says on the imdb that she plays Charlie Soda. Any luck on a shower scene? She's also looking quite nice in Stuff magazine this month - Kelly Carlson. Now if that's not a really nice way to get back on topic, nothing is.

his cases are top notch in quality. what makes or breaks the deal is the quality of the art work given to him. case in point the evangelion box. a bit uninspired. also some people may find the notched edges distracting. Needless to say, I feel very approvingly of the quality of the artwork that I gave him. What I really meant was the material. It's very neat and not nearly as metal in feel as I thought it would be. It is definitely very metallic - particularly the finish, but I think I almost expected something more like sheet aluminum, which it's not - thank god. It's exceptionally sturdy - which I'm sure has alot to do with the notched edges. I'm super pleased with it, I think the rest of you guys will be too.

That was beautiful, man. Truly beautiful. And entirely truthful. Also - NUH_UH! I bE tEH Maztur Th3 w3B! BITE ME, l00zer1111!!!111

Good lord... how on Earth did Van Helsing have a 170 million dollar budget? No Oscar calibur actors, both Jackman and Beckinsale are barely A-list... did they blow all that dough on effects or Sommers? That's a ridiculous budget... no wonder they haven't even broke even.

You don't have to see him get macronized to know that he gets macronized... you never really see anyone pee in every movie but you know they do right? I've seen movies where it seems like all they do is pee... but those are different. And special. Very, very special.

Ew... rave veritech... thank god they ditched the reflective crap.

Well... actually... THE SDF CASE HAS JUST ARRIVED IN MY OFFICE!!!! Very, very cool. This being my first Paul Champagne case, I can't really compare it to anything, but I'm really amazed at how well the Mech box turned out. I'll snap some pics of it when I get home... it's so shiny and reflective. Definitely a first class way to display your Macross DVDs. Or Pr0n. Whatever. EDITED to add - Oh yeah, and I'm definitely #001. My box told me so.

I agree with you, for the most part - But it's important to remember to put things into perspective - Not only is this Yamato, makers of the 1/48 VF-1 - They're also still Yamato, makers of the 1/72 VF-11B.

How do you know it isn't because of lack of sales in Japan too? From what I've seen their complaints to Yamato are even more vicious than ours - regarding everything. I'd imagine the Q-Rau is no exception. But the lack of pilot figure is definitely part of it.

Y'know... I feel your pain, bro... but I think you're more than a little over the top in your accusations. Yamato is nothing like Toynami, even if they've had some releases lately that aren't quite as good as a year ago. The GBP armor I can't speak about, because I don't have it yet. The Millia pilot for the Q-Rau isn't exactly crappy, and when fans complained they decided to make a better one, including some variations that are most fanboys' dreams... I can't fault them for that. At least they're listening. The VF-0 is a bad design and very far from perfect transformation - but it's not as though they're hiding this fact and then forcing you to buy it. The YF-19FP - this one in particular I'm getting tired of hearing about in rants. They've said they were going to make one and they haven't yet. They haven't even shown prototypes. If they make it fine, if they don't - fine. It's their decision and again, it's really up to them to decide if such a release is what they want to focus on at this time. There may be a horde of reasons it hasn't been released at this time. For one, they may feel that their Scopedog or Koenig will make them more money. Another could be problems with the sculpt or production. It seems pretty simple to me that they didn't just slap Fast Packs on the old sculpt (like the YF-21 and VF-11B) because they wanted to make something better. All of the ranting about it is simply customer impatience. "I want it now. Give it!" You guys really need to learn that Yamato is running a business, not a wish fulfillment center. Yamato has made pretty great strides forward as a company. Their early releases were exceptionally shoddy. I haven't seen ANYTHING they've put out that rivals the craptastic quality of the VF-11 with exploding hips. Nowadays, we have members here crying because they made a paint line too fuzzy. With each 1/60, they got a bit better and constantly tried to innovate on their toy designs. With the 1/48, they scored a home run. Recently we've seen them branch out into new designs, new licenses, etc. There's bound to be some growing pains involved. But I know for a fact that I can look at my toy shelf and see some top notch toys there, all made by Yamato. I'm not trying to flame you or anything, Anubis - but seriously, I don't see these problems as anything nearly as bad as what Toynami has put out, or even better, what Yamato has done in the past.

Seriously... it's more life-threatening than watching that tape from The Ring. God freaking awful. And what's up with the giant blue font? We can read it just fine if you write it normally, hombre.

Well... it definitely proves that they believe that the Yamato brand name carries more weight here in the US than Toycom, which is a lame generic name anyway. As for Macross in the US... one can hope.

That's ridiculous. Japanese culture? Into violence? Nah. It must be evil America's doing!

Well... ideally a good director would be good with actors, primarily (and yes I am talking about humans here). Aside from that, he needs to have a vision for his work and an understanding of nearly every job on the set. I think what JSA's post was implying was that ST2 had no real known quality actors, no real known fantastic script, and no proven director. Regardless of whether this guy's pedigree was in special effects or dog grooming, that's still bad odds for a good movie to emerge. It can happen, but on a major studio (much less a sequel) job - it's most likely to turn out a film full of explosions and "trailer moments" and precious little else. However, I think it's ridiculous to deride Cameron or Jackson's work, though. It's very easy to be Mr. Armchair Movie Critic, but it's another thing to have a film that grosses hundreds of millions, in the top 10 grossing films of all time and takes home the Best Picture at the Oscars. No offense, homey - but if that's hackwork - then sign me up to be a hack. Personally, I can name 100 films easily that I like better than Titanic or LotR - but I'm not about to sit here and say these guys aren't great filmmakers, because obviously they are doing something right.

That's a particularly low bodycount for an elementary killing, from an American standpoint. This stuff is horrible, but is it still shocking to you guys? EDITED to add - I know it's creepy, but after reading about the other youth crimes in Japan, I'm starting to get a weird "Battle Royale" vibe.

Lessee - Toynami 1/55 (MPC): 0 (Had one, hated it, sold it) Bandai 1/55: 8 Bandai 1/65: 2 Bandai 1/72 (HMC): 0 Bandai 1/100: 0 takatoku 1/55: 0 Yamato 1/60: 4 Yamato 1/48: 5 Yamato 1/72: 2

Dude... it's wasn't a Hartke Transporter 410, was it? I just sold mine on eBay a few weeks back and shipped it UPS ground...

No, to me it looked dark green, but I'm shade colorblind like a mofo Gray it is! I thought you were just looking at it through one of those old Matrix monitors. It is a cool custom... I'm not usually a fan of non-canon entities like this, but it really does make sense that this could be a valk you don't see on camera in DYRL.