Suicide Squad?
 

... I hear it suuuucks.

I'll still see it, I guess. It comes out on my anniversary with my girlfriend. But after reading some of the preliminary reviews, I am almost dreading it.

Even with Batman v. Superman, there were a few ok to good reviews early on. Not many, certainly, but at least... y'know... like, one. I ended up enjoying that one a lot, despite its flaws. But this one starting to feel like it's going to be a chore.

Heard all this blah-blah about Jared Leto's "method acting" (not real... One must first be able to act before one can method act), but from what I'm hearing the Joker's a total bore, and is not even a major character in the film.

I think I'm starting to see a pattern in how WB/DC in the post-Dark Knight world is fucking their shit up. They're willing to compromise and re-arrange every idea they have just to ensure that it features one "must-see" element. In BvS that was Batman. Some focus groups probably told them that more people would see a film, regardless of the quality, if Batman was in it.
Makes sense... he's the most popular comic book hero in the world. But I'm guessing BvS would have been better if it had just been Man of Steel 2. Fewer ticket sales? Probably. But they would have had a better film and a better franchise on their hands if they hadn't pulled that out of their asses.

In Suicide Squad, it's the Joker. Everyone loves the Joker. Joker = Oscar. Joker reminds people of Dark Knight, which is loved by all. And yeah, Joker probably = more ticket sales, regardless of film quality. But if you have a ducky Joker in a sucky film, you're not doing anyone any favors, as you're killing your own cash cow.

Look at Guardians of the Galaxy. Huge hit, great movie, yet none of the characters are iconic in pop culture. Suicide Squad could/should be similar. Make a movie with some fresh characters, and do it well. In theory, that will give you more cash cows for future projects. Instead, this other thing is happening.

Anyway, who's gonna see it?

I want to. When I heard about how Leto prepared, he sounded like a bit of a tryhard. Anyways....Harle Quinn looks hot.

never read the comic, don't give a shit about anything that tries to make violent, psychopathic, irredeemable murderers be the people we root for.

Jared Leto sucks. His band and music suck shit. nearly every movie I have seen that casts him sucks.

Harley Quinn is a bullshit stupid character which only gained traction because they needed a "female" to be in the Batman cartoon.

still jealous of jordan catalano after all these years?

me too, me too

even today i wanna break his face

but dallas buyers club was alright

twas a'ight, if quite a bit departed from REALITY.

I'm waiting for that Suicide Squad R-rated cut.

sure, as all films must be, but cant blame leto atreides for that

jordan catalano must die though

goddamn I hated that shit show when it came out.

Remember when The Weekend was reppin' for "My So Called Life?" instead of the Low Life?

everybody hears everything sucks. Nerds are raging about the Killing Joke animated movie. I enjoyed it. The tacked on prologue was unecessary - other than to pad the runtime. But beyond that it was very good.

I got tix to see Suicide Squad on Saturday. I'm super excited. Like, prob my most anticipated movie of the year so far. I'm prob more excited about this than I was for the new Ninja Turtles. Don't care about a ROtten Tomato score and avoiding any/all reviews and spoilers until after I've seen it.

I have seen trailer. violence, violence and more violence and it suppose to be action and comedy like? maggot robie looks horrid. I think I'll skip this one. looking forward to new Star Trek tho.

Go see the new Ghostbusters instead.

I wanna see new Trek. supposed to be way better than the white-boy Khan one

I disagree.

are you talking generally or this particular role?

both.

I really want to see this for sure, but my girlfriend isn't as into Trek as I am, and it's a "wait for DVD" movie for her.

For me, it's a big deal. I might go see it by myself. Can't believe I haven't seen it yet. I was supposed to write a column about it after it opened. Ha.

Also, I'm like the ONE guy who thought Star Trek Into Darkness was a perfectly good flick. Really and truly. I didn't mind one of my all time favorite characters being given the white-washed business because, first of all, Khan was from a post-war, post-conflict uotopian future (ok, it was the '90s, but that was still the future at the time), so I can only assume he was post-race. His "heritage" wasn't a part of his backstory.

Also, the Cumberbach Khan was just so different in so many ways (from a different timeline even) that it felt more like a "legacy" reinterpretation than a reboot of the same character.

But whatever. Everyone hated Into Darkness so I guess it was a bad movie.

Really though... Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3, Star Wars 1-3, were all SO MUCH MORE OBVIOUSLY SHIT.

I'm still looking forward to it honestly.
I hate movie critics. They have more power than music critics. If an album gets panned, it generally doesn't deter the artist from making more albums, and they often go on to make great shit because they didn't choose to quit.

If enough critics pan a movie (especially one with sequel potential) then the people who love that movie may never getting to see any more of the characters they liked so much again.

Then who suffers? Not the studios, really. Not the actors, usually. It's just the fans. Imagine how pissed Phil Pullman fans were when His Dark Materials got the axe after Golden Compass failed to be as big as Lord of the Rjngs! That was a serviceable fantasy flick. It's a damn shame.

So I'm gonna try to stay positive and just enjoy SS. Like I did with BvS, which was the most fun I've had in a theatre all year, honestly.

I hated that fucker then and I hate him now and I would love to punch him.

He's part of Severian's elite face-smash club, along with Drake and a nobody named Gideon Yago that I remember from something at some point.

So you probably like him in Fight Club then?

generally hottie, but in this role? fair enough..

I'm a post generation X, under-40 male aren't I?

jared leto looks like his personality would be like. looks like he would know what a constant mirror in front of him would be like.

like an underdeveloped james franco with an extra underdeveloped façade of cred and down to earth vibe.

My wife and I both loved it.

I just learned that Leto won a fucking Oscar in 2014. How did I miss that? Maybe because it was so unlikely it didn't warrant thought.

We skipped it last night. Mostly because I'd worked for 12 straight days, and needed to just fucking rest. Lamest anniversary ever. Adulthood is terrible.

Now we've missed our chance to see it together for at least a week. Goddammit.

I'll watch it in the next few days, based on your recommendation, since I trust your taste.

I still haven't seen it and my interest has declined steeply with every article I've read, including the favorable ones.

Asked a friend to come watch it with me, she said "nooo I heard it sucks." :o

It wasn't very good but it wasn't any worse than like Batman vs Superman or Civil War

you shouldn't do that man. I wish you had just seen it early and not been filled w/ negative press. The whole thing is stupid honestly. I think if this had come out a few years ago it would have been praised. It's just being compared to like 6 other comic book movies per year now. I think critics are overthinking shit they shouldn't. It had its holes and nonsense, but it was full of fun (unless you were one of those people that decided going in that you weren't going to let yourself have fun).

death to jordan fucking catalano

Well, to tell someone that they shouldn't let the critics deter someone from seeing a movie, that's what critic's support of a movie or dislike of a film is there for. Sure, we're welcomed to ignore criticism but the negative reviews of this movie were damn near universal. The problem is that DC movies of late have not been great, and they seem to really want to reach the heights of Marvel, putting out two movies or a year from their properties, but they have yet to make a solid movie post-Nolan's Batman trilogy. There were a lot of people who after Batman V. Superman were really hoping Suicide Squad would set the course right, and it didn't. To put out two bad movies in a row is not looking good for the near future. Fans want to be psyched for Wonder Woman, and Justice League, but DC have yet to prove they can pull off a solid good movie from beginning to end.

why not wait for redbox and rent it for a dollar?

There's a good column in all this somewhere. I think the main thing DC/WV fails to grasp is that the reason Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy was so amazing is because they recruited a director... Like, a serious filmmaker. They did not hire a "comic book director" like Zach Snyder, Kevin Smith or, bless his heart Joss Wheadon.

Batman Begins came with pretty low stakes. It was not an attempt to cash in on a trend or start a booming franchise. It had been a decades since the world's most popular super hero had been on screen, and the last film was so disastrous that there was really nothing to lose. So they went a little "arty" with it, and hired an indie director with an eye like Kubrick, and a penchant for epic scenes to rival that of Ridley Scott. Both parties benefitted. Nolan became a household name and got a big budget to make the Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar, and Batman got a surprisingly good kick in the pants.

Then they pulled out the stops and made a sequel that was recently voted favorite movie of all time by Twitter users.

They hired great actors, not just big names, but big names with balls.

Heath Ledger's Joker was not the result of method acting bizarro bullshit, or an actor succumbing to the madness of his character. It was an instance of an actor actually making a character better, not through schtick, but through excellent acting. Heath had COMPLETE control in that film. Control over himself playing the part, and control over everyone's Eyez as they watched him.

Somehow that has really fucked shit up for everyone to come after, though. Applying "method acting" techniques to the Joker is not what made that film a success. Going "extreme" was not what made it a success. Any of them. They were all just good movies with good, often excellent acting, and a brilliant vibe. They were actually pretty terrible as comic boom adaptations in the Avengers sense of the word.

They need to stop trying to replicate TDK, stop trying to build a shared universe, and just focus on making ONE good, solid film.

For what it's worth, I still think Man of Steel was a good, solid film. But even the audiences are spoiled by TDK at this point.

Man, I really wanted to go opening night. Like I said, it was my anniversary and we were going to go, but it fell through and I'm still pissed about that. Now it just doesn't make sense schedule wise for me to take the girlfriend any time soon, so I'm gonna either go by myself or wait for Blu Ray, but there's no way I won't see it, and I won't let the reviews fuck up my opinion of it if it's worth while. I think the BvS criticisms were insanely overdone. Overly dramatic. Ridiculously negative. It was a much better movie than I expected after reading what I read, and I expect SS will be the same, but I'm just not pumped enough to rush out and pay to see it by myself.

then that's going to be all of $2 at the redbox

Yay!

Actually, I think Red Box is more than a little passé at this point. Movies are available on iTunes long before they're available on hard copy. For some reason nobody talks about it, but it's true. The "Ultimatw Edition" of Batman v. Superman was legally downloadable two weeks before it came out on DVD/BluRay.

And then there's always TPB. I don't pirate films often, but when I do, I find it to be almost absurdly easy. I'll bet there's a DVD quality boot of SS available right now on "The Bay."

don't know about passé-- it's good for some things.

you said you wanted the bluray, and that's the cheapest place to get that sort of low-iq blockbuster shit. mental margarine from the supermarket kiosk. two-buck chuck, and pick up some potato chips.

grownups with jobs shouldn't be pirating unless it's rare/censored/out of print stuff. it's kind of embarrassing in this day and age i think, at least in countries with full access to everything online.

Yeah, but you often have to wait behind an overweight couple in sweatpants while they fight with their kids about how many games they can rent. I've tried, but I've never actually made it to the box.


:(

I don't do it often, really. Never with books, only in the direst of circumstances with music (and also, I only do it with albums that I have purchased and am waiting for, or albums I intend to purchase as soon as humanly possible.) Usually with a release that's important enough to me that I feel like I need to own the physical copy, in which case I'll consider a TPB visit while I'm waiting for te delivery. But I think the last time I did that was with the Life of Pablo, and I ended up subscribing to TIDAL for access to that thing, and then going to the official website and paying $20 for a digital purchase MONTHS after I'd already had access to it.

I try to be fair, but if an album "comes out" and I physically cannot buy it, then I will do what I have to do to be able to listen to it. I live in a small town for the first time in my life, and having no record store fucks up the whole process.

Same with movies. If I can, I'll rent, or go to the theater. But small town theaters don't show films like the Witch or Green Room, so my being employed an adult has no bearing on my ability to see it.

I always prefer owning things, or at least paying for what I get.

You wound me, sir. :(