Jay,

You need to visualize your ‘missed flight’ as an opportunity. Make a documentary short about border crossing. Maybe you can win some points by making those guards famous.

Oh, and if you had been wearing your FilmJunk swag, you may have been given a free pass. That, or wear a director’s hat ala Ronnie Howard.

I love these border-crossing stories from Jay. Never gets old! At first I wasn’t interested in the Shout Factory release of the Herzog set until I realized that on average I’m not paying more than maybe $8 US per film (+ shipping).

Great episode this week – the border-crossing story was top notch.

I haven’t watched The Raid 2 yet, but it certainly doesn’t sound like an improvement over the first. I love action movies that know how to pull off having only one main location, and after the first movie doing that so well hearing about this expanding and being extremely long I’ve more or less lost all interest in watching it.

I was also hoping you guys would review Hercules next week as it looks like it’ll be awful.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can’t say it isn’t an improvement over the first one because……….. YOU NEED TO SEE IT FIRST!!!

Good thing I didn’t say that, then.

Better Herzog than the Farting Preacher!

Smudge of Darkness: A Film Collector’s Apocalypse

You could have asked Werner about his plans for Grown Ups 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvlOTJJyvEU

That was amazing. I only really know Paul F Tompkins from him being Werner Herzog on Doug Loves Movies but this was as epic for me as a Marvel DC crossover.

Too much whining and nitpicking during that RAID 2 review. Curved knife? Its called a Karambit. This review was horrible.

Ha, I’ve actually heard of this Paul F. Thompkins before. Ari Shaffir mentioned him on his very popular skeptic tank podcast. Now I’ll have to check him out. “I apply 16 pounds of pressure which is enough to break a human arm”

As for Frank taking heat in the junk mail segment, I think that listeners see Jay giving Frank the ribs all the time and feel like they can join in. What they don’t realize is that there’s no familiarity there, and the teasing just comes off as mean and completely out of left field. Know that you are well loved, Frank.

THE RAID 2’s story may not be as tightly constructed as INFERNAL AFFAIRS or something from Johnnie To (you guys really should watch To’s DRUG WAR, which is on Netflix streaming), but I thought it was still interesting and actually did a good job of sustaining the long runtime.

I think it’s strange how neither of you really delved into what Gareth Evans and his crew accomplished with the action sequences (and their buildup), although it sounds like Sean didn’t think it was worth discussing since he didn’t care about the story enough. There’s a lot to be said about how the action was shot and edited, as well as the intricate choreography and the amazing physical skills on display; there are some very inventive, amazing shots throughout the movie (e.g., the single shot that starts at one car and then passes through a second car).

At the very least, I would actually say it’s better than THE DEPARTED. I was so excited to see that but was shocked by how it basically drained all the tension away from INFERNAL AFFAIRS, inserted a ridiculous love triangle, and changed the poignant original ending into something that was pat and jokey. Frank said he suspects that some of the villains in RAID 2 are cheesy, but none of them can be worse than Jack Nicholson’s super hammy, unconvincing performance as a gang boss in THE DEPARTED.

His Ice-T is always amazing.

Unlike in Matt’s case, I think many people leave motion smoothness on not out of choice but out of ignorance. It’s a factory setting, and if you don’t know about the nuts and bolts of modern TV’s you’ll just miss it and never adjust it.

For me motion smoothness make film look downright horrible. It’s a flat look, lacking any depth or highlights. It’s perfect for sports and maybe live music concerts, certainly not film, which is shot in 24 fps and meant to be seen that way.

Having matt and pft on fj would be like seeing Tim Allen on Seinfeld during the 90s. Now if we can just get Reed on Comedy Bang Bang…

I’m joining the resistance too.

The only time I’ve witness motion smoothness for a considerable amount of time is while parusing the TV aisle of Walmart (the difference is painfully obvious). I’m still fascinated at comparing it to regular framing but admit that sports-watching is greatly improved.

I haven’t even seen the first Raid, yet. I did see a compendium of the fight scenes on YouTube, but I was bored by it. I prefer the action stuff being done recently by Donnie Yen.

I challenge you to an improv pun-off, Gerry.

That was fake?

I agree with other listeners. If you guys don’t go see BOYHOOD in theaters, you’ve failed at life. Without hyperbole, I can honestly say it’s one of the best films of the decade.

Crossovers to other podcasts are nice I suppose but I like it when things stay strictly in the FJ universe, I must say.

What action/martial arts stars are doing good things now?

I know this post is probably way too late for you to see, but there aren’t a lot of names that pop up for me. I would actually say the team behind The Raid films are doing some of the very best martial arts work right now, so there’s a good chance you won’t agree with me on this topic.

I really like Jacky Wu, but I also haven’t seen him do anything really impressive lately; same thing goes for Tony Jaa. However, I am a big fan of Scott Adkins, a really talented British martial artist (Ninja II, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Undisputed 3) and I loved the fight scenes in Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster. The Korean film The Man from Nowhere has perhaps the best knife fight I’ve ever seen.

I’m still amazed at how divisive this movie has been. People either love it or can’t stand it. I thought it was dull as bricks.