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Kevin Bacon

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Kevin Bacon last won the day on September 19 2016

Kevin Bacon had the most liked content!

About Kevin Bacon

  • Birthday 11/03/1994

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  1. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I'm totally into the X-Force we've got set up--Colossus, Cable, Yukioh, Negasonic, Domino, I want to see more of all of these people. That's a movie I'll pay to see. As an aside, my biggest nitpick is actually that no self-aware mention was made of the dozens upon dozens of civilians who were absolutely violently killed during the big truck setpiece near the end.
  2. I'm surprised by this reaction. I went into it cautiously optimistic; the trailers were fine, the first movie was solid but I'm of the mind its freshness kind of made it feel better than it actually was. It's a constant risk with this character to get sucked into the one-liners and profanity and end up writing a big long meme instead of a film. But you know, I loved it. It took everything that I liked about the first movie and made it better, and my first impression is that it's my favorite non-Logan superhero movie in a very long time. There were some misses (most notably the dubstep bit, which really didn't need to be revisited at least three times), but by and large the movie was funnier than the first. The action was significantly better, packed with so much creative, brutal violence I imagine if I see it again there will be plenty I missed. And what really puts it over the top is the damndest thing: for all the winks at the audience, preposterous humor, and meta commentary, the story carries a strong emotional weight that's been absent from every corporate universe bullshit blockbuster from the past ten years. Not every single emotional beat works; I didn't terribly care about Cable's already dead family or Russell for much of the movie (I half expected it to be building to a punchline where Wade goes "fuck it, kill him"). But the important elements did make me care: I cared about Wade and Vanessa (the first movie established that), I cared about Wade's pain and desire to die, i cared about his reunion with Vanessa the end and they even got me caring about Russell by the end. There are definitely conventional aspects of film here and there that can be criticized like the weird pacing of the story, but when everything works on as many levels as they did here, who cares?
  3. If Godzilla 2014 had a good script I'm confident it would be really well regarded. I thought Edwards did an incredible job with they movie from a visual standpoint.
  4. Fuck yes! One of my favorite working directors. You're Next and especially The Guest are the epitomization of so much of what I love about movies. While I'd gladly watch him make smaller films with Simon Barrett forever, I'm thrilled he's getting a big payday and a chance to show the world what he's got. Here's hoping he isn't let down by a subpar script (cough Blair Witch coughcoughcoughcough). The Guest is also low-key one of my favorite directing performances I've seen. The plot is standard genre homage, but it's so densely packed with marvelous camera, performances, and use of music. There's like ten shots I have a near photographic memory of just in the last twenty minutes.
  5. I was pretty cynical going in, but I really liked it. I don't know that I'd call it great in any conventional sense, but it was all very effective and it lacked the wonkiness of Prometheus. What largely surprised me was how much better the Prometheus sequel was than the Alien reboot. I think at this point what I'd really like to see (but isn't going to happen, now) is Ridley Scott doing more Prometheus movies while somebody fresh (Jeremy Saulnier would be a dream, I'd also be fascinated to see what Adam Wingard could do) makes a proper Alien sequel, which as good as Aliens is and as much as I like Alien 3, we've never gotten. I just want somebody (other than the Creative Assembly, who made easily my second favorite Alien property in Alien: Isolation) who gets what made Alien such a fucking classic and captures it with something fresh. James Cameron wasn't up to the challenge and made a James Cameron popcorn flick, which is great if you're into that, but I think it really derailed the potential for the franchise before it even got going. Back to Covenant: The cast is strong all around and the dialogue is solid, and that goes a long way in keeping the audience invested when things get hairy. Even obvious red shirts I found myself kind of rooting for. The lead actress is a strong choice and I hope she doesn't Rapace'd between now and the next film, and I was shocked at how straight Danny McBride's character was played (not that I was surprised by how good he was in that regard, he's displayed that versatility before in his Jody Hill collaborations). Fassbender is terrific and David remains a fascinating character and a much scarier villain than any of the xenomorphs in this movie (though I will say those pseudo-xenos that do most of the damage are pretty freaky in their own right). I'll give it a very strong 7/10. Pretty much all of the best aspects of Prometheus (aside from the cinematography) with none of the goofy crap, with a mediocre Alien movie occasionally slipping to the cracks. I hope Scott figures out how to better blend the two styles together in the future--please, no dumbass "the Alien interrupts a sex scene!" gags that belong in Friday the 13th and not Alien or Prometheus. I'll also say that I liked the David twist purely for how obvious it is. It's completely telegraphed, and then so much time is spent committing to it, it's a pretty fun stinger when he slips to reveal himself right after it's too late.
  6. I can confirm that viewing the movie a second time after having listened to the soundtrack and learning the lyrics is much kinder to the early musical numbers, especially "Another Day of Sun". When the lyrics aren't easy to understand, there's really no context for any of it.
  7. My disdain for musicals fell to my adoration of Whiplash and Ryan Gosling and got me to see this. It starts... people start getting out of their cars and dancing and singing... fuck, this isn't for me. At least I tried. Well, hey, it actually is pretty impressive how much work must have gone into choreographing all of this, but, alas... Then, another number. The interplay between Mia and her roommates is kind of charming. Wow, this quiet section with everything slowed down is actually rather breathtaking! Then, two hours later, I'm dancing out of the theater to the end credits and ordering the soundtrack for ride home. What a delightful movie. I think the moment where I really got past the strangeness of characters breaking into song was the first instance of Mia and Sebastian's Theme when Seb plays it in the restaurant. From that moment on, the music (which is really wonderful, by the way) was totally engrossing and felt absolutely in place in a way I didn't register initially. I'd credit that to the context--a beautifully shot scene of Sebastian playing the piano or a visually popping montage or a scene with Seb and Mia dancing alone worked in a way that a bunch strangers dancing and singing directly to the camera didn't at first. Also, Damien Chazelle. Whiplash, and now this? This guy's got no fucking ceiling. Maybe the most exciting rising director I can think of (Gareth Edwards, Dan Gilroy, and Sam Esmail are all sound competition, though). A And if the lack of camera cuts during his scenes didn't give it away, yes, that was Ryan Gosling playing the piano. And no, he's not an experienced pianist, but rather he got that good in just the three month rehearsal period. As if more proof was needed that he's the perfect human.
  8. Hey, you're entitled to enjoy it. You're the show's target audience, after all. I can appreciate that you got something out of it. However, it's kind of insulting to say that because I thought this cliffhanger was cheap and lame, I don't understand how cliffhangers work. I don't even need to point to shows like Bojack Horseman, Mr. Robot, and Better Call Saul that regularly end episodes with excellent cliffhangers--The Walking Dead itself has had tons of great cliffhangers! But the season six finale was the complete opposite of a good cliffhanger. It was a gimmick cliffhanger that was designed to do exactly what you said: stir up discussion and pop a rating when the show came back. It's what happens when a show tries to be a cultural phenomenon (which The Walking Dead is absolutely succeeding at) instead of great art. Because in no universe do high ratings correlate to quality TV. Usually, if anything, it's the other way around. The mixed (at best) critical reception would be a much better link for me to retort with, but for some reason Metacritic is taking its sweet time getting the reviews together for this season. The best way I can put it is this: a good cliffhanger leaves the viewer in suspense of what happens next. A cliffhanger that leaves the viewer wondering what already happened, with rare exceptions, is a bad one. The strength of the narrative isn't the source of the suspense, it's a hokey camera trick outright concealing the narrative from you and making you wait six months to learn what the story even is. They could've simply played out the scene as it did in this episode--Negan kills dudes without the first person goofiness, Rick says he's gonna kill Negan, Negan takes him to the RV and slams the door. Cut to black. Exact same story, but everything works better. The deaths would've had way more punch, the season finale actually delivers what the story's been building towards, and there's a great cliffhanger leaving everyone hungry for what comes next. But rather than simply tell the story, they bend over backwards to stir up social media buzz. And yeah, "Who shot JR?" was in a very different time of television. If Dallas aired today, it wouldn't exactly be considered prestige television. The Walking Dead isn't, either, but with the dumb shit with Glen last year, followed by that cliffhanger and this hour of misery porn, the show's sinking to the point where I don't think it's even trying to be anymore. They've embraced the series as an apocalyptic soap opera and decided to write for the invested fanbase rather than try to improve the writing. They'll keep hammering home the same themes and beats, periodically killing off a major cast member for shock value, introducing walking plot devices like Negan, until eventually there's only Rick and Carl left and who knows what the hell they'll do then.
  9. And it sucked in the comics, too. EDIT: and the episode sucking has little to do with it being too violent. It's a hodgepodge of narrative shortcuts and transparently manipulative writing. Not to mention the series' trademark feet-dragging. If nothing else, it would've been much more effective at the end of last season without that insulting cliffhanger.
  10. Wow, what a miserable, sadistic episode of television. And not in the good Game of Thrones way. In the senseless, messy The Walking Dead way. I was basically expecting as much from the negative reviews, but I was still taken a bit off-guard.
  11. This show is so much fuckin' fun. It makes other, arguably much better shows feel bland in comparison just because of how much fun it is. Tonight's episode was a pitch perfect example of that. Evil Delta is probably the best antagonist the franchise has ever had. It's such a thrill that we're getting at least three 5-hour Evil Dead sequels at all, let alone ones that do genuine justice to the series. The last three episodes of season one certainly weren't out of the realm of the movies and I'd even argue it as better than Army of Darkness.
  12. It probably wouldn't have helped the box office any (it's hard to say) but I'm pretty confident it would've been much better received by critics. It still would've been pretty mixed, but I think it'd be more 50-70 on RT than down in the dumps where it is now. But the movie was always Blair Witch in reality, it's the entire reason for its existence. If you changed the name, people would've thought it was weird that they just lifted the premise from TBWP. Those early teasers implied it could've been anything in the woods. Now, if you're asking if it would've been better received if we simply got that movie, I'd say yes. I imagine Barrett would've turned in a much better script if the movie wasn't a sequel to something else.
  13. Also, I'm watching "The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears" just because that clip for Matthew Rhys got me in the mood and holy shit, this show is so great, I'm so sad it lost. Happy as I am for Maslany's win, it's going to be very difficult for Russell to match or top her season four performance next year. Then again, it's going to be hard for Rhys to top his work in season two (he still hasn't) and he didn't even get nominated for that.
  14. That last bit is important. From hearing about another setting change and the huge fluctuation in quality from season one to two, it makes me wonder if we'll see a drop (or increase) in quality.
  15. Yeah that's why I was hoping it would get it if The Americans didn't. They went in a very inaccessible, strange direction that's likely to alienate voters. Otherwise I think Better Call Saul this year was better than Robot's first season. But none of them won, because Game of Thrones did. At least it wasn't anything really screwy like Downton Abbey or House of Cards.
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