In the case of Death Race 2000 there you can only find one example of cheesy dialogue.

It just lasts the whole film! XD

Well the movie is deliberately funny and that's why I never considered it bad. Criticizing it for being silly is like criticizing Airplane for being silly.

Well worded. Personally, I see no problem with cheering for Rico when he grenades the fat bug and at the same time laughing at him for being so inane to be in the mobile infantry. Infantry is absolutely crucial (both RL and for capturing brain bugs) but no one in their right mind wants to do that if there is any other choice, at all. I remember carefully studying the Swiss Army brochure and choosing the job that seemed most removed from infantry because everyone from my Alpine village was sent straight to mountain infantry if they didn't have a plan. 7 other people wanted the same job that I wanted but I studied the brochure more carefully and figured out how to play the cards properly so I got the job. I wasn't in any way better qualified than the other people, I just figured out the system. Fuck you, Klendathu!

I find it amazing how completely and utterly unaware left wingers are to the fact that fascism is fascism and that left wing fascism is 100,00% as bad as right wing fascism - the only difference being that left-wing fascism has resulted in even more dead people so far. The majority of intolerant, close-minded, illogical, nasty, self-righteous, smug, hypocritical, egotistical and hateful people I've met were not right-wingers but left wingers. In theory, both are supposed to be equally unreasonable but the level of self-awareness is generally lower in leftists. They have a stronger tendency to believe they're the good guys and not many things are more dangerous than that. Being right wing is equaled with being evil nowadays and as a result I have not met a single person who said they were right-wingers, on the other hand I've met plenty of people who proudly call themselves leftists or even far leftist - both in RL and on the internet, including this forum. As if that was anything good.

I was once again too cynical to vote in the county council elections last weekend but if I had to vote for someone, I would happily choose the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), just to piss off all my leftist colleagues and acquaintances. Due t silly and petty partisan mentality, they would never in a hundred years vote for anything the SVP/UDC supports, regardless of the issue at hand. Most of the left-wingers I know aren't technically dumb at all which makes things even worse because lack of intelligence would at least partially excuse them. Just can't take their smug attitudes and immunity to reason anymore. Have been neutral most of my life but I'm done with that. It's sad how the polarization of the political landscape can make the most neutral-minded person unable to maintain their position. Debate gets you nowhere, it's a waste of precious energy with no results. So next election, I'm voting for the right wing - it will be the first time I ever support any side in council elections. In terms of nation-wide popular votes on specific issues, I'm already on the right-wing side anyway (anti-EU etc). Despite cynicism, I still have some minimal self preservation instinct. Something a shocking number of people don't have.

/ off-topic miffed political rant, sorry had to but not sorry for my opinion!


Probably depends on how familiar one is with the material he's ripping/riffing off from. Tarantino is more like a DJ/VJ to me rather than an original filmmaker. Either way, imho Tarantino fails both in the fight and comedy category. No amount of clever camera work can hide the fact that Uma Thurman doesn't have the necessary skill to make the fights have enough "oomph" and the comedy isn't nearly as funny as a proper Hong Kong action comedy. Personally, I'm getting more entertainment from watching a good old Jackie Chan movie.
This video explains the point I'm trying to make in detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ


Exactly - they can't. It's either going to be a grimdark wannabe badass remake or a parody = "we don't have the balls or skill to make something proper and we're too afraid hipsters will make fun of it if we try for real."

Well now. I think you should take a breath, study a bit the history of fascist ideologies, and accept that sometimes the anti-SVP vote comes in "what's that for a disgustingly evil retarded proposition, oh, came from the SVP again, I see" chronology.

Maybe you should vote accordingly to policies more than to "piss off" people, if you wish to be above political polarizations. But, whatever amuses you. I'm too jaded by greek "politics" to really feel anything strong about swiss disputes anyway...

Well, I suspect that a Starship-Troopers-hardened Verhoeven could. I mean, apply the same approach to it, and pull it off succesfully.

Besides, there might be a movie that managed it recently, but I haven't checked it out by myself, only heard good things about it. Would be interesting to watch in that perspective.

That's actually the exact problem I've been describing in my rant above:
So your argument is that you don't oppose the SVP because they're right wing but because they're "disgustingly evil" (more like "unfortunately correct").
This would appear to place you on safe ground but it does not - you can't claim the moral high ground without reasonable argument first and even then it's not a good idea to vote on morals which are a rather subjective thing and prone to error. If you say that you looked at who occupies the low moral ground and you therefor can't support the ones you see in that place, you're putting the cart before the horse.

Regarding history, generally sounds like a good idea but the people I've discussed politics with generally have the "immune to historical facts" perk or the even more powerful "so deep in denial they can take pictures of Abu Simbel" so using any painstakingly acquired history knowledge from years and years of taking an interest in it doesn't have any impact. I've decided it's not worth my energy - that is a limited resource after all, so I'd simply burn out before turning a stubborn person around.
Although I did have a friendly debate on the street today with a Jehovah's Witness whom I managed to convince that draft dodging (mandatory for Jehovah's Witnesses) is a bad thing in a country that has a purely defensive army like Switzerland.
The guy I talked to was born in 1940 in Germany so he understood my point to some extent. It was a very interesting talk, and a much more friendly one than when they show up at my house every couple years because whenever they do that I march them out the building and off the premises immediately. It felt nice to be a bit more civil for once, they're human beings too after all.


The way I vote on specific policies is still based on reason and will continue to be so, never on partisan membership. It just so happened to mostly correlate with the SVP program in recent years and if this correlation continues, I might as well vote their politicians into office and not just their policies. As much as I strongly dislike voting for people because people can screw up. Regardless of what party they belong to.

BTW as a little kid, I was actually on the SP side (social democrats) because I had no clue about the actual topics and just thought that Peter Bodenmann (SP) was more civil than Christoph Blocher (SVP) who always tried to rudely interrupt everybody with his loud voice and arrogant sounding Zurich dialect during TV debates. Nowadays, I still think Blocher is rude but in terms of policies he got things more right than Bodenmann. I learned to separate argument from personal sympathy, it's quite important. Just because Blocher often acts like an ass doesn't mean he doesn't have a point. It's not like I need him to be my best friend to hang out for beers.

In that case I hope you're too jaded to vote in Switzerland. If you're too jaded to vote and I'm too cynical to vote, there's actually no point in us discussing politics and we can presently get back to talking movies, ha!

Hitman is a great game franchise, but it doesn't translate well to film. The story line is kind of weak. I mean, bald tattooed super assassin clones? Not really a recipe for cinematic brilliance. The fun of the game is sneaking around exotic or seedy locations and killing people with meathooks and shit.
I'll just stick to Leon if I want to watch hitman movies. The end of that movie was more or less reused in the end of Contracts anyways.
Yeah, I love taking the mystery science theater approach and watching Roger Corman movies and the like. Always a blast.

I saw The Good The Bad & The Weird but completely forgot about it, this probably doesn't speak in the movie's favor. Honestly, I can't remember diddly squat, if I hadn't just checked the trailer I wouldn't even remember seeing it at all. I guess that means the movie neither left a positive nor a negative impression.

I'm having cautious hopes about the new Conan movie Verhoeven is supposed to direct - I'm just afraid that without Basil Poledouris this isn't going to work :(

Wait, Verhoeven? Where did you get that? I never heard anything about him directing it.

Anyone ever listen to the audio commentary on Starship Troopers? It's hilarious; basically NPH and Verhoeven pointing out every single technical mistake and laughing their assess off.

You didn't read it so I'll give you a second opportunity for that.

...accept that sometimes the anti-SVP vote comes in "what's that for a disgustingly evil retarded proposition, oh, came from the SVP again, I see" chronology.

See. Chronology. 1) contact with disgustingly evil proposition, 2) notification of its origin. We live in a country that allows us to vote on laws/propositions/socoieta issues, more often than for people/parties. So we basically don't even need to check who it comes from, or what who suggests to vote how. It just happens, anecdotically, that the SVP is behind the most vomitive propositions, but that is a mere sidenote.

That is the opposite of a "where does it come from, it must be shit then" chronology.

Now, if the SVP ideology suits your own beliefs, moral priorities, and sensitivity, the effect will be that, indeed, you'll agree with most of their propositions (and define your political sympathies through these individual propositions). By all means do. It just happens that they keep systematically pushing for everything I'll ever stand against (xenophobia, banking secrecy, militarism, antisocial policies, and the systematric destruction of human rights imperatives). It's hard to ignore this pattern, but it doesn't even require to be taken in consideration given the way that these issues are submitted to us (direct democracy).

This is different from other political systems where the population can only influence politics through party endorsements, meaning that the party's image (and related identification) matters more than content, and treacherous promises are more of an issue.

Now if you want to rationalise oppositions to your views, initiative after initiative, as some specific anti-SVP cabal, be my guest. Too jaded to vote, no. Too jaded to argue with the swiss extreme-right when it's still so timid compared to the greek "new democracy". Blocher is almost a decent, civilized politician, in comparison with greek standards (you'd love Georgiadis).

He was at one point in talks to direct The Legend of Conan, but as of right now no one knows who will actually be doing it.

Verhoeven's commentaries are always good, intellectual but frequently hilarious.

Admittedly it's not confirmed, but the thing about rumors is that they wouldn't be rumors if we didn't spread them so I'm doing my humble part :)
(If you google "Legend of Conan", Paul Verhoeven is listed as director though, so maybe Google knows something we don't)


Since people in this thread probably don't give two flying nuggets about what your or my political views are, I've posted my reply to you over here

Enjoy :)

Starship Troopers is funnier, smarter and has more balls in its first minute than most movies these days manage in their full duration. The little child soldier-wannabe proudly proclaiming "I'm doing my part too!" is nicely mirrored near the end when Rico has his little "Adolf Hitler has a final meet & greet with his HJ-troops"-moment as he remarks how all the soldiers in his unit are still kids.

There's so much to that film and Verhoeven is a fucking genius! The grand master of the subversive blockbuster. Him showing up in a thread about "bad films" indeed shows a crucial misunderstanding of the guy's work (save for maybe Showgirls, which is quite a stinker).

I fully agree with you! The reason why I listed Starship Troopers to begin with was not that I think the movie is bad but because it is "officially" considered a bad movie. All the movies I listed are movies I think are great, unironically.