The Borderlands trailers have looked pretty bad, but if you’re struggling to understand why Cate Blanchett decided to star in an ensemble action-comedy blockbuster with Jack Black and Kevin Hart, people with a proven record in such movies, you’re not trying hard enough.

one of the more cursed movies due out this year. always a good sign when they let the movie sit for 2 years before doing reshoots with another director.

I didn’t make much on my features. Maybe enough to pay a few months of rent now and again but I always needed dayjobs back in the 90s.

This. She’s bemoaning that briefest of periods in the late 90s to early 00s when indies were a cheap way for studios to buy Oscar noms for original screenplay, or supporting actor. They’d just go to Sundance and buy a few films there to beef up their awards slate. But then a number of those films flopped, or frankly…

Right, and that might not be all bad. Holofcener laments the loss of arthouse movies theaters, and (as someone who also loves such theaters) it’s a real loss. But people in Iowa aren’t sitting around wondering why they can’t find a theater anymore showing Enough Said — they never had one.  The fact that they can find…

probably paid more than 30 of mine. Oof. Hey kids, don’t go to Tisch/NYU. Go be a plumber and do something useful.

It was easier to talk about selling out in the 80s and 90s because artists of even relatively low profile could still make a modest living because of the sale of physical media — plus, in the case of films and music, theatrical tickets. Collectively, even some pretty niche creators could make a good amount of money…

I’m sure the rise of streaming also might be some kind of factor? A less-expensive movie to produce is probably easier to host online than finagle a theatrical release for.

You may be familiar with this so apologies if I’m filmwanksplaining. But the apocryphal story of Predator’s development is fucking hilarious to me. According to legend, the producers of Predator had been joking in a bar about the next Rocky movie. They were like “Well shit, Rocky’s just fought the Russians. Who’s…

I certainly understand the frustration that indie filmmaking is struggling and that smaller films are finding it ever harder to find an audience.

Modern understandings and tastes in movies aside, I also think that movie would have done better now because we have a broader idea of Arnold’s personality. Social media has allowed us to see that the guy has a bigger sense of humor, particularly about himself, than people realized back when Last Action Hero came out.…

Fuck cancer.

Arguably, the best female voice in Rock and Roll.

Of course there are many titles one could fuck this series up with.

I was just talking to someone the other day about how underappreciated Last Action Hero is. It does a lot of fun things with genre tropes, both in terms of parody and subversion, and you can tell a bunch of the cast (Arnold and Charles Dance, in particular) are having a lot of fun making it. It also helps that…

Maybe speed doesn't count if it's pharmaceutical?

Oh definitely. It’s dumb as hell but pretty dumb fun I’d say. Except for the end twist that (SPOILERS FOR A DECADE OLD MOVIE) Mark Ruffalo orchestrated the whole thing which undercuts the whole plot and means that the entire plot of him trying to catch them was pointless. It’s like if Ocean’s 11 ended with George…

The marketing did it no favors. Whoever cut the trailers apparently didn’t get the point. And/or the studio was terrified that Average Joe Moviegoer wouldn’t “get” an action satire starring Ahnold. Either way it wasn’t advertised correctly.

“I’m the author of two franchises.”