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Rhyno posted:Hey let's ignore coked up RDJ as the traitor on the team. Actually I just forgot about him because I remember almost nothing about the movie. Is RDJ the one who shoves Snipe's face in corn? Cause I remember that scene.
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Aug 7, 2015 05:24
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effectual posted:Yeah! I know US Marshalls isn't a "good" movie but it's entertaining to watch. It really isn't. Stuart Baird is just a god-awful director.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:17
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He's a pretty good editor, though.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:21
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Rhyno posted:Hey let's ignore coked up RDJ as the traitor on the team. Thanks for the spoilers, rear end in a top hat. Not that I ever plan to watch this movie but I might be in a room with it playing someday 
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Aug 7, 2015 23:37
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Gilok posted:Thanks for the spoilers, rear end in a top hat. Not that I ever plan to watch this movie but I might be in a room with it playing someday I'm not sure it's even a spoiler... if I remember right it's really obvious he's a traitor early on.
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Aug 8, 2015 03:26
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Gilok posted:Thanks for the spoilers, rear end in a top hat. Not that I ever plan to watch this movie but I might be in a room with it playing someday Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.
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Aug 8, 2015 03:36
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Snapchat A Titty posted:This interrview is fantastic. I guess I have to quote it. Seriously, read this interview with Udo Kier. It's amazing. quote:AVC: Tell me about Blade. What did you do in that one?
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Aug 8, 2015 03:43
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Udo Kier is loving awesome. I haven't read that yet but is that the one where he talks about the Korn video?
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Aug 8, 2015 03:53
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Rhyno posted:Udo Kier is loving awesome. I haven't read that yet but is that the one where he talks about the Korn video? I don't think so, no. It's the AV Club series where they talk about roles in films. I wanna read that one though, please link.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:04
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Snapchat A Titty posted:I guess I have to quote it. Seriously, read this interview with Udo Kier. It's amazing. I really wish he had talked about Command & Conquer. Anyway, this thread convinced me to rewatch Blade for the first time since at least prior to watching Blade Trinity when it came out in theaters. So I guess the first time in 11 years at least. Because of the thread I tried watching it with the idea that it was a blaxploitation movie, or at least a piece of 1970s black cinema that just happened to be made in the nineties. And I think that interpretation definitely holds up. Blade's car, Whistler as a kind of thematic proxy for a Vietnam veteran, the police and banks and other government agencies being corrupted and in league with this secret society, the number of Asian people and martial arts and cultural aspects in whatever city this is supposed to be... But what really hit me was how much this movie is obsessed with race, on several levels. Obviously there's the whole pureblood vs. half-blood (or whatever). Ignore the fact I have no idea what it means to be "born a vampire" or how that would work, but just going from the movie it struck me that Blade himself is basically a pureblood by its definition (he was born a vampire, even if he also has the daywalking aspect). But there's also the traditional racial component... Blade is basically (at least thematically within the movie) born of the rape of a black woman by a white man. His whole crusade is trying to get revenge on his mother's rapist, as well as vampires in general - even though there are black and Asian vampires, the fact they can't go out in the sun makes them associated with being pasty, and after all the only way Deacon can go out in the sun like Blade is by making himself the opposite of Wesley Snipes, literally pure white by slathering suntan lotion over his face. And one of Frost's lovers/lieutenants is Mercury, who is super pale, super blonde, and almost always dressed in pure white. And then in the climactic fight, Blade gets his powers back by rejecting his mother (who sided with Frost) and drinking from Karen (the black woman who at the start was shown to have rejected her white ex-boyfriend). You can even see Whistler's death as kind of an inversion of the typical action movie trope of the black sidekick dying to up the ante (side note: I actually thought I remembered that Whistler was killed in the third movie, so him being killed here actually did surprise me). And even Blade taking the name Blade rather than going with his mother's birth name Eric (I never got when she would have named him that or how he would have known anyway) could be seen as a reflection of some black nationalists rejecting their own birth names. But then there was also the definitely sense I had that the movie was trying to show Deacon being jealous of Blade's ethnicity, with him being jealous of his daywalker powers being the movie's analogy for him wanting to be black. He attacks Blade's mom, keeps her as his lover, shows an interest in Karen and tells her he can satisfy her better than Blade can, wants to be able to go into the sun without having to make himself literally white (and initially does so by wearing the all-black motorcycle outfit when he burns up Udo), and both Mercury and Quinn wear the cornroll hairstyle. I know this will sound absolutely crazy, but watching Blade now, Deacon kind of reminded me of Chris Kattan's character from Undercover Brother, which is especially crazy because I probably haven't seen that movie for a decade or so, either. Anyway, other than that, I also thought it definitely seemed like it had some proto-Matrix DNA in it, too. Besides the martial arts, Blade's outfit, the conspiracy/corruption in an unnamed big city aspects, Mercury at one point looks like she's wearing one of Trinity's outfits and when Blade storms Deacon's blood fortress lobby it definitely seemed like shades of the Matrix lobby fight. I also still love the apparent indication that thousands of years ago there was some ancient vampire civilization in America that left a giant blood temple around underground.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:24
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Snapchat A Titty posted:I don't think so, no. It's the AV Club series where they talk about roles in films. I wanna read that one though, please link. I haven't seen it in years which is why I asked!
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Aug 8, 2015 04:48
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Chairman Capone posted:
Blade also has a proto bullet-time shot of Frost dodging bullets.
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Aug 8, 2015 11:58
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So, I started off realizing that this film is without a doubt the high-water mark of the careers of both Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff. This has left me wondering if this movie is the film-career peak for every single actor in the movie.
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Aug 8, 2015 12:52
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ChickenMedium posted:So, I started off realizing that this film is without a doubt the high-water mark of the careers of both Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff. This has left me wondering if this movie is the film-career peak for every single actor in the movie. I feel like Kris Kristofferson's career peaked with Blade 2, because there he got to poo poo talk Ron Perlamn.
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Aug 8, 2015 13:01
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having recently rewatched New Jack City i'm not sure Blade is really Snipes' peak as an actor (except commercially), but it's probably second place
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Aug 8, 2015 16:04
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:having recently rewatched New Jack City i'm not sure Blade is really Snipes' peak as an actor (except commercially), but it's probably second place I'm also not sure its Dorff's peak as he made a movie with Sofia Coppola.
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Aug 8, 2015 17:44
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Udo Kier was in Suspiria, and as much as I like Blade, it's no Suspiria.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:23
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ChickenMedium posted:So, I started off realizing that this film is without a doubt the high-water mark of the careers of both Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff. This has left me wondering if this movie is the film-career peak for every single actor in the movie. Probably not for Traci Lords 
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Aug 8, 2015 18:26
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Sanaa Lathan probably reached her high-water mark of her career with Blade though.
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Aug 8, 2015 19:14
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Alhazred posted:Sanaa Lathan probably reached her high-water mark of her career with Blade though. As terrible as it was, she did star in AvP and was about as good as one could be with such mega horrible material.
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Aug 8, 2015 20:07
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Neo Rasa posted:As terrible as it was, she did star in AvP and was about as good as one could be with such mega horrible material. Not being terrible (and its not like she pulled a Raul Julia and acted her rear end off either) in a lovely movie isn't the high water mark in anyone's career (or at least it shouldn't be).
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Aug 8, 2015 22:06
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Alhazred posted:Not being terrible (and its not like she pulled a Raul Julia and acted her rear end off either) in a lovely movie isn't the high water mark in anyone's career (or at least it shouldn't be). The same could be said of her in Blade. :P
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Aug 9, 2015 00:50
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Grendels Dad posted:It feels like I didn't have to listen to the Black Eyed Peas in years and am otherwise oblivious to what they do, so all I have to go on is his performance in the movie. Which got completely overshadowed by that one bucktoothed guy in a fat suit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJSULjfycXo Udo Kier as Little Brother, begging his mother die, and upon her rejection, Krogh, the doctor whose casualness exceeds his skills.
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Aug 9, 2015 02:28
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Alhazred posted:I'm also not sure its Dorff's peak as he made a movie with Sofia Coppola. Which was a steaming piece of poo poo.
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Aug 9, 2015 06:59
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Chairman Capone posted:Ignore the fact I have no idea what it means to be "born a vampire" or how that would work, Two vampires have sex and make a vampire baby - pure blood. Vampire that was originally human and was 'turned' - not pure blood, AKA Frost. Blade is kinda neither, because he was born a vampire but not as a result of two vampires having a child.
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Aug 9, 2015 12:28
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Well yeah, but if vampires don't age, why aren't they all still babies? Or why isn't Deacon now as old and wrinkly as Udo? I mean, I know it can just be handwaved by vampire magic or genetic blood gene whatevers so it never really was an issue for me but it's always been one of those things that stuck out.
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Aug 9, 2015 14:29
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In blade 2 you have that old wrinkly rear end vampire boss I've just assumed they live for a very long time, not an eternal ageless existence
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Aug 9, 2015 14:44
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they say in the film that while Blade ages normally like a human, vampires age slower -- but they do age
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Aug 9, 2015 15:15
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Part 4: Fleshing out Blade and Frost 0:22:50-0:33:00 Blade shows up at Kam's shop that seems to cater in Eastern style medicine.    Blade pays Kam in watches in order to get the serum to prevent his bloodlust. He says that Whistler thinks he is building up a resistance.  You barely get a chance to see it, but Kam has The Eye of Horus on the back of his head. I never even noticed it until I watched Blade when I started this thread. It is symbolic of good health and protection. It is the primary symbol of the sun god, Ra. It was also used in ancient Egypt by including it on the bracelets that were given to passed pharaohs in order to protect them in the afterlife. I find this oddly prophetic given the contextual reading of Blade being on the edge between the living(humans) and the dead(vampires).  Kam is one of the only people Blade has a comradery with outside of Whistler. I don't know his story from the comic books, but I always assumed he was a childhood friend or even maybe older brother of Blade.  Karen wakes up in Blade's place.  There is a chess set. White vs black obvious connection to race and blacksploitation, but also a links to Wu-Tang and Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai  There is also a place for meditation. She also finds the ID card of Blade's mother.  And a gun rack...   And Chekhov's Now Wu-Tang Clan was pretty much at their height of popularity and influence in 1997 with the release of Wu-Tang forever and multiple solo albums in the past year or so. I really feel that even though that the Blade comics have been around since the 70s, the main reason why they went this route in the movie was because they were piggybacking off of the Wu-Tang craze. Ghost Dog on the other hand came out a year later and was a reflection on gangster movies, but it was through the lens of blaxploitation movies while cribbing heavily on eastern thought and imagery just as Blade did the year prior. Ghost Dog's soundtrack was done by RZA, so that just adds another link between everything. Basically what I am saying is that Ghost Dog and Blade are both extremely similar only that Blade does it with vampires and Ghost Dog does it with gangsters. I feel there is more to say here, but I have not watched Ghost Dog in a long minute.  Meanwhile, Whistler is working with the serum in order to give to Blade.  Karen sneaks out of her room.    Blade gets injected with the serum while tied down. When this happens Whistler locks hands with him and looks away. This is great, because it shows how much Whistler hates doing this because of how much pain it causes Blade. It seems to hurt him as much as it does Blade. Hell, the look that Blade gives just before he is injected really says it all.    Karen is spotted and they corner her. I assume they are not 100% if she is vampire or not being that when Blade jumps down he has his ummm throwing blade thingy.   Whistler refuels the car and smokes at the same time because he just does not give a gently caress.   Whistler and Blade explain to Karen how vampires exist and how to kill them. One of the ways is UV light.   This is another great line from Kris Kristofferson. When Whistler shows Blade his latest UV lantern Blade responds "Still Heavy". Whistler just looks confused at him and says "But your so big". It just kills me every time.  Blade tells Karen to leave town unless she wants to die. Whistler gives her a thing of vampire mace to protect her and recommends that she buy a gun in order to off herself once she starts turning because it is better than the "alternative" and it zooms to Blade.  This driving right here is when I noticed that a lot of the ambiance music seems to be styled after John Carpenter. Right here has a minimal beat that kinda resembles a heartbeat.     Dragonetti enters the House of Erebus library to yell at Frost for being there and he discovers him trying to decode a dead language in order to awaken La Magra, the Blood God.   Frost continues to listen to his kickin rad techno until Dragonetti yells at him. Frost then gets up and tells Dragonetti to keep his voice down because they are in a library.  Dragonetti responds by slapping Frost and asks what Frost is up to. Frost just puts his hand on Dragonetti's face and asks him what he is going to do.  Dragonetti calms down and just states "You bore me" before leaving, obviously shaken. I was always a little confused by this scene. Are there any repercussions for vampires? Are there vampire jails? I assume not, because it seems the old guard just worked under a code of respect. Fat Lou fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 19:56
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Fat Lou posted:Are there any repercussions for vampires? Are there vampire jails? I assume not, because it seems the old guard just worked under a code of respect. What about with what happens to Dr. Webb? He turns into this zombie/vampire thing? and is left to waste away.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:08
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DarkSol posted:What about with what happens to Dr. Webb? He turns into this zombie/vampire thing? and is left to waste away. I assumed that that was "Frost justice" since he was turned by Quinn. I might be wrong though. I just find it odd that there seems to be no repercussions for even when he is directly breaking the rules of the House of Erebus. Also, I assume that he was just not given any blood for ages and that is why he becomes so skeletal.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:13
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They say something about how the process sometimes properly doesn't 'take', and creates beasts like him?
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Aug 10, 2015 01:20
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Golbez posted:They say something about how the process sometimes properly doesn't 'take', and creates beasts like him? Exactly that.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:22
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Golbez posted:They say something about how the process sometimes properly doesn't 'take', and creates beasts like him? Oh poo poo, yeah, I don't know why I completely forgot about that part.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:23
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Golbez posted:They say something about how the process sometimes properly doesn't 'take', and creates beasts like him? Did they call them Renfields or am I remembering that from another franchise?
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Aug 10, 2015 01:29
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Fat Lou posted:
 that reminds meSnapchat A Titty posted:This interrview is fantastic. quote:AVC: You’re listed on IMDb in Moscow On The Hudson as “Gay Man On Street (uncredited).” What was that all about?
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Aug 10, 2015 01:33
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Dienes posted:Did they call them Renfields or am I remembering that from another franchise? That's in The Dresden Files, I think.
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Aug 10, 2015 01:36
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Fat Lou posted:
TheFallenEvincar posted:
This is because Udo Kier improvised the "You bore me *strolls out*" in the movie too.  In the script Dragonetti is much much more shaken and intimidated by Frost, he stays in the library, completely cowed as Frost walks out self satisfied with his reveal of having made actual progress translating the scriptures. I think this is because the conversation between Frost/Dragonetti/etc. in the board room earlier in the movie is very different in the script. Frost isn't called in to be scolded about his night clubs, but rather he enters the meeting uninvited to talk about how they need Blade alive.The argument isn't about pure blood/turned but rather about how Dragonetti wants to focus on killing Blade while Frost wants to take him alive for the ritual. The ritual/etc. is spoken of much less vaguely throughout the movie, with Dragonetti being so immediately shaken and defeated because he knows Frost is right about everything. Blade's "Motherfucker are you out of your god drat mind?!" was improvised too, that entire scene played without dialogue until N'Bushe Wright says her shoulder is dislocated after her and Blade exit the scene. She doesn't even cure herself either at first, having to rely on Whistler's medicinal prowess regarding removing rattlesnake venom or whatever. Basically David S. Goyer's career exists because of repeated fortune of working with directors and casts who would take the skeleton of what he wrote and add some actual meat to it. Less related, Quinn is waaaay more feral in the script, described as being massive, covered in "tribal, Maori-like" tattoos and having a huge jaw that could separate out almost like a shark's. So this makes me wonder, looking at that Udo Kier interview, if his decision to play it like a stock broker ended up having way more effect on the film than one would think. Note how the board room scene is about business, exposure and keeping connections with the police in line rather than being about assassinating Blade or the ritual. And how Quinn instead of being a straight up monster (which I believe is what N'Bushe Wright's ex-boyfriend would eventually become, I think they were implying that sometimes you become a bit crazier/animalistic like what Quinn would have been) and Frost are like a drunk and his douchebag finance bro best friend. I think it's also why there's a bit of a flip with how the hierarchy works in Blade II, in that movie the older the vampire is, the more powerful it is, period, until they create the Reapers. But because of how Blade I goes down we see the opposite, where the impure turned vampires can do stuff like be in the sunlight for limited amounts of time and there doesn't seem to be a disparity in physical strength, etc. I think it's because while the changes are generally more interesting (like I and you and everyone has said, the racial purity obsession of the vampires makes it more interesting, Frost himself, is obsessed with racial purity in how driven he is well), it's still on the skeleton of a script with an ancient order of vampire godlings secretly ruling the world from behind the scenes. The script expresses this in a flowery way, with Dragonetti speaking in terms of "for thousands of years we've excelled in the shadows" or whatever. But Udo Kier talks in a much more modern way, in terms of public exposure and deals with the cops. Blade II follows the more fantastical approach, possibly because Goyer's script is more intact, but I haven't compared in a long time. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 04:30
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The whole thing with the House of Erebus and the Vampire Bible remidns me a lot of Vampire: the Masquerade, with it's clans working in a very feudal hierarchy and the legendary Book of Nod describing the biblical origin of vampires. In V:tM, vampire justice were very Mafia-like, with their own Omerta: the Masquerade. If you caused enough trouble or broke enoguh rules, they'd just kill you.
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Aug 10, 2015 05:25
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MonsieurChoc posted:The whole thing with the House of Erebus and the Vampire Bible remidns me a lot of Vampire: the Masquerade, with it's clans working in a very feudal hierarchy and the legendary Book of Nod describing the biblical origin of vampires. Didn't White Wolf sue over the similarities?
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Aug 10, 2015 05:33
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