Category Archives: Movie Lists

Movie Lists, Movies, Top 5

Top 10: Movie Quitting Scenes

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As critical as employment is, most of us have an epic quitting plan on file.  Most of us will never use it, but we’d be lying if we said during hour two of an awful meeting we didn’t take it out, carefully review it, think of the perfect musical accompaniment, and refile it in our brain’s sanity file.  Some people truly love their work, and the rest of us…well, we hate you.  It’s not personal (it might be, I’m trying to soften it), but the majority of us are stabbing minutes trying to get to the small slice of the day that’s actually ours.  That’s why WatchMojo’s Top 10 List of Movie Quitting Scenes is probably not a good idea for work.  Both in content and inspiration, you should probably enjoy this shot of vicarious glee on the weekend.  Unless you have to work on the weekend, in which case you absolutely hate your job and should watch this immediately (I am not responsible for what ensues).  I sometimes have quibbles with WM’s lists, but I think they did a pretty good job here.  I’d have swapped Road House for Burn After Reading off the Honorable Mention Lists, but epic quitting scenes from American Beauty, Fight Club, The Truman Show, Wanted, Office Space, and others are the kind of thing that will give you a case of the Mondays any day of the week.


Fight Club

 

Disney, Movie Lists, Movies, Star Wars

Top 10: Han Solo Moments

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WatchMojo’s got a timely list of everyone’s favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder’s 10 best moments from the Star Wars Saga.  WM does a really nice job putting together a highlight reel of Harrison Ford’s time with the character pulling its list from A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Force Awakens (nothing from Return of the Jedi?).


The list comes in the wake of Solo: A Star Wars Story’s pretty disastrous opening weekend.  Adjusted for inflation, it’s the worst opening in franchise history, and considering the film was shot twice, Lucasfilm had a lot of money wrapped up in its second spin-off.  Every franchise eventually has a bomb, but it’s usually a film that deserves to bomb.  In this case, Solo was doomed even before The Last Jedi’s controversy that alienated a large portion of the fan base that traditionally whips itself into a frenzy for opening weekends.  I wrote a column last summer, before The Last Jedi alienated me, begging Lucasfilm to keep Star Wars in December and to stop trying to put the franchise back in May, where it had traditionally opened under FOX.  Even though it’s uneven, Solo is ultimately a good film with a really nice cast that sets itself up for even bigger adventures that we likely now will never get to see.  I hope we do, but that would take some serious introspection on Disney’s part as to why exactly the film failed to connect.  Hopefully they’ll take the lessons they should learn, let future installments breathe, and realize their mistakes.  If not, they’re going to have a much more serious problem than a single Star Wars film that lost money.Harrison Ford as Han Solo

Comics, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Movie Lists, Movies, Super Heroes

Avengers: Infinity War Characters – Screen Time Breakdown

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Josh Brolin in Avengers: Infinity War
In its third weekend of release, Avengers: Infinity War leaped to #5 all-time at the global box office, passing the original Avengers film to become the highest grossing super hero movie in history.  In the US, the film passed The Dark Knight to climb to #8 on the domestic charts.  With Deadpool 2 this week and Solo: A Star Wars Story coming the following week, we’ll have to see what kind of staying power the super hero epic has, but it’s already left an indelible mark on the box office.  While I don’t quite want to get into an all-out spoilers discussion (I hate to ruin the film for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, and if you haven’t, GO!  See it in the theater in the biggest format you can!), for those of us who have seen it, you may have wondered exactly how much screen time the massive cast got per character. (Potential spoiler warning)
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Animation, Comics, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Movie Lists, Movies

Top 10: Film Villains With Justifiable Motives

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WatchMojo has a great idea for a list this week with the Top 10: Movie Villains With Justifiable Motives.  The best villains believe they’re the hero of their own stories.  The elite make the audience believe their actions, no matter how heinous, are justifiable.  Think of the best screen villains, and you usually know why they’re doing the things they are.  One of the MCU’s biggest problems until recently was a lack of motivation given to the villain.  Most non-MCU comic book films focus on the villain almost to the detriment of the hero (most Batman films), but the MCU took the opposite route and poured all its character development time into the heroes.  Phase 3 took a different approach and gave us more nuanced villains like Ego, Killmonger, Zemo, and even, yes, Thanos, were given a twisted logic for their crusades.  WM went with The Vulture for their list, and that’s a good pick.  I actually don’t have much of a problem with any of their picks: Silva from Skyfall, Syndrome from The Incredibles, Koba, Magneto, etc.  I think the only flaw in the list is that it doesn’t go back any further than 1982’s Blade Runner for candidates, but I’m sure everyone can think of a few baddies who had motivation enough for some sympathy.  Who would you have put on this list?  Javier Bardem in Skyfall