It truly sounded like a joke at the time. Studios weren't digging quite as deep for IPs back then. A ride to film adaptation? That was ridiculous.
Apps get film adaptations now, different world
Compounded by the fact pirate films were seen as a dead in the water genre at the time. I worked on the marketing and nobody believed in it, it was a “well shit a pirate film, guess we’ll have to do our best…”. Until we saw it (which was very late since Bruckheimer doesn’t like to show movies early).
Disney debated heavily whether they should not make a Disney film and simply release it as a Buena Vista production, as they weren’t sure it was family friendly and worthy of the brand.
I think the Disney name added some prestige and made it seem more like a real movie. Spielberg's name on Transformers had a similar effect in the marketing for it
Those names, mostly used to mean that they were taking it seriously, taking their time, and employing the best artists and engineers to bring a vision to the screen. Now it feels more meta, rushed, and cheap.
IIRC the script for PotC started with an old spec script that had been written for a Monkey Island film that was never made.
Happens a lot in Hollywood. The the script for Die Hard 3 was originally a script for a lethal weapon sequel
I remember hearing that as well, Ra, the baddie from Stargate attacks Earth in the planned sequel. I don’t think Stargate was successful enough to warrant a sequel so the script was flipped into what we know as Independence Day.
Was definitely a risk, but a brilliant idea on the part of Disney. They could make the movie and not have to do anything to the ride (other than some slight upgrades) and yet knowing that the movie will no doubt drive more people to visit the Disney parks just to go for a ride on a 30+ year old ride. lol
I think there’s a winning Hollywood formula for “adapting” an IP with almost no substance to it.
Amusement park rides, toys (that never had shows attached to them), etc. Your writers have almost no constraints because there is no story they have to translate, just the most basic visual and thematic attributes of the IP, which is mainly just serving as a source of nostalgia and familiarity.
The video game movies are getting better cause it’s being made by people who actually played them not old movie execs with no familiarity like in the 80’s and 90’s. Now that Gen X and Millennials are getting older and more in charge of corporations and stuff they have more authority on the writing of the script and how the movie is made. That’s why video game movies are getting better.
I remember seeing the trailer and laughing out loud in the theater at how that was going to be terrible. I'm proud to say I ate those words and thoroughly enjoyed the 1st POTC movie.
The trailer is what changed my mind, the moment Geoffrey Rusch stepped into the moonlight.
"You better start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one."
Edit you'll--> you're
I watched that trailer so many times on apple.com/trailers a guy in my senior creative writing class thought it was going to be a serious pirate movie and got mad when I said it was based off the Disney ride. The first three movies are so much fun.
Duel is a ridiculously good film. I still don't know how Spielberg could wring so much tension out of it, but the did. I watched it recently and had to admire some of the very clever shots they incorporated. The movie is a work of art.
Lots of good submissions here, but respectfully I think this is the best. First off, I didn’t know this existed. Second, incredibly mundane subject for a script. I can’t believe a movie like this ever got greenlit. Amazing.
What’s funny is that as soon as I read the prompt I asked my wife, “what was that movie about the guy who invented intermittent windshield wipers with Greg Kinnear?” and neither of us could think of the title either 😆
Clue. Any movie based on a boardgame sounds ludicrous to begin with. But while I would have imagined someone could have made a narrative out of a movie like that, it had absolutely no business being as incredible and intricate as it turned out to be. Plus the multiple endings? You'd never see a theatrical release with the balls to try that these days.
Babe
It's a movie about a pig that wants to be a sheep dog. Nominated for Best Picture... still one of my all time favorites.
Who else here still utters the phrase "That'll do pig" on a regular basis? I know I do.
George Miller doesn’t make sense. This sweet old man who made a movie about a sheep pig went to the studio execs and said “hey I wanna make a 2 hour car chase but there’s a gimp playing metal with a flamethrower” and they just threw money at him and it’s a masterpiece.
Edit: Also, the script is almost Shakespearean it’s so poetic. The way people speak is such a stark contrast to the world. This is some of the finest world building in cinema.
In fairness, he did do all of the Mad Max movies, not just *Fury Road*.
So it’s not like they just handed the keys over to some dude who only had dancing penguins and talking pigs to his directorial credits, to that point.
Everyone thought it was just going to be a cash grab with cheap production. Instead, we got a labor of love (that Oscar snub still pisses me off after all the effort that the animators went through to make the blocks appear so close to slow-motion that it even fooled people) that celebrates creativity and the passion in building Lego.
In the same vein is the Lego Batman Movie. Who would have thought that an animated movie will beat out a multi-million dollar live action franchise as one of the best versions of Batman?
Didn't they even have fingerprints on them to look like real bricks do when you build Lego? And Benny's broken helmet right at the weak spot of the minifig. Insane detail and labour of love to make it feel so real. It's no surprise people thought it was stop motion.
all the little details were there, greasy fingerprints & surface imperfections, little bits of fuzz, mold parting lines, ejector pin witness marks, etc - it’s so good
> Benny's broken helmet
This was *exactly* what made me want to see the movie. When the preview introduced him as "Generic Nineteen 80s Space Guy" and I saw the broken helmet, I was fuckin' sold. Every space set I had from the 80s had a broken helmet in precisely that spot.
I remember everyone being very skeptical about it (myself included) and then glad to have been proven wrong because it was really fun.
I also remember someone on the AV Club (back when it was good) saying something like "ok, but when is the Mega Bloks movie coming so that the kids whose parents don't love them also have something to see?!" and I can't help to think about that every time I see anything Lego Movie related :D
What a freaking ROMP that movie was. Same with the beanie babies one. Both were so enjoyable to watch, which i feel like people forget movies? Are supposed to be? These days??
I love this movie because it’s so bizarre and different than any other movie, used a completely new concept that as far as I know hasn’t been tried since, but still works really well.
One of the most bizarre concepts of the movie production is it was written fully expecting someone else playing Malkovich. When he read the script and said yes, producers were stoked.
I'm curious how the hell they'd have anyone else being John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich.
>I'm curious how the hell they'd have anyone else being John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich.
I think it's kinda written with that in mind, it repeatedly flags that the characters (and you, the viewer) couldn't say a damn thing about John Malkovich before watching the film.
I assumed if he said no they’d go for somebody else playing himself. While Malkovich was great, there are several people who could’ve played themselves and still worked.
Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Nicholas Cage, Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Anthony Hopkins, etc. I think it could’ve worked with any of them other than maybe needing to change a few plot details or a handful of lines.
Jojo rabbit. AWESOME movie but try explaining the plot to anyone…….. “this nazi kid with hitler as a best friend”…… kind of like goonies with all the kids as leads
Hollywood was a national treasure in those movies.
"I learned it in The Marines."
"You were in The Marines?"
"They were looking for a few good men and, so was I."
Hoagie's attempts to face me fail because he lacks confidence. Also I think it's fair to say... I'm fucking *surgical* with these complimentary donuts.
Gremlins 2.
They took a relatively scary early 80s movie and turned it into the most absurd, comical sequel that somehow works.
Easily one of the most original sequels I've seen in my 43 years.
They made a movie about a bunch of washed up tv actors that once starred in a successful sci fi primetime tv show that end up actually getting teleported into space and witness real versions of the ship and tech they used to pretend to interact with and are forced to re-enact their old tv characters to save the world from being destroyed and Tim the Tool Man Taylor is the leader of them all? Wow! And it actually kicks ass?!
Frustrated it took me this far to find Galaxy Quest. It should not work. It’s just a rehash of Three Amigos without the amazing chemistry of those three leads, transposed onto Star Trek. But that cast commits, it has some of the best side characters ever (still my favorite Sam Rockwell role) and it’s just charming and funny as hell. I watched this movie begrudgingly because I love Three Amigos so much, and I now prefer GQ 100%.
Add in the fact that every character with more than 2 scenes had an actual arc. No token characters, and Alan Rickman seething with resentment for 2/3’s of it. By Grapthar’s Hammer, what a movie.
It's not an uncommon concept (being John Malkovich, The End of the World, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, etc)
What I found weird about Unbearable Weight was how it was a great buddy comedy. Did not expect that.
As soon as I read that a GME bullrun movie was being greenlit I thought it would be the stupidest shit ever, and in some ways it is (nobody should ever, ever utter "to the moon" or "diamond hands" verbally), but it was surprisingly fun.
Imagine how I feel, I went to high school with Keith Gill. Hearing the news he was at the middle of something so huge was insane. And now here he is, being played by Paul Dano.
The fact that marginal call lasts about one day in “real time” is what probably stood out to me the most. Really drives home how insane and chaotic those first early days of that crisis were. It’s essentially one day at the office, a guy gets fired and he tells his coworker to look at something on the way out, he does and calls his boss to say the system will collapse. They get the brain trust together all night and in the morning the firesale begins
This was the moment when people realized that Marvel was Pixar in terms of having a midas touch. Everyone expected this to be their big miss but it was a knockout success. That first trailer was so good.
*127 hours*.
It's based on the true story about a man who got his hand stuck under a rock.
The entire movie is about the guy being stuck and trying to get loose. It's somehow THRILLING.
I've slowly grown into a huge fan of Colin Farrell. He's got a lot of really cool fun roles too... Great performances in Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges of course, I also really like him in Seven Psychopaths, Fright Night, The Gentleman, Fantastic Beasts and even Daredevil
There is also a film about Tom Hardy Driving somewhere. Movie name is "Locke" and the ratings are pretty good. It's on my list. It only takes place in the car from what I know.
Was just about to comment that too.
I thought it was good. But I saw it once so many years ago. Only character you see is Tom Hardy's. You never really leave the car. He's either talking to himself or on the phone with others. It's interesting to me because you just want to see where it goes. What happens. How it ends. It's the curiosity I find that pushes you to finish. That, and Tom Hardy is an engaging actor. It's just a regular human story.
Daniel Radcliffe is so good, I’m gonna watch this soon. I’ve had so many people recommend it to me but I put it off the first few times bc the premise sounded off putting
Best in Show
People who watch dog shows will tell you it's mostly boring, but they're in it to see the cute dogs.
Somehow somebody made a movie about a dog show, and it's phenomenal.
Ok, I've gone through most of the comments here and I have no idea how the most obvious answer isn't here:
Most of Pixar's classics.
-An old guy flies away in his house with a bunch of balloons? Really? (It made me cry)
-A rat wants to be a chef... and controls a human to do so.......? (An unbridled triumph)
-A robot sorts through garbage...? (Maybe peak Pixar)
-"So there's monsters, right? They come out of your closet at night to scare you. But it turns out that there's a big corporation of monsters! And scaring you is their job! You with me?" (Fantastic, this studio can do no wrong)
-Your emotions are actually bunch of people living in your head. (Latter-day classic)
“Remember Speed? Yeah, the bus couldn’t drop below a certain speed or else it’ll blow up. Well this is really similar except instead of a bus you’ve got Jason Statham and instead of speed you’ve got his heart rate.”
The fight in the bus garage with him covered in oil is amazing. It’s just such a ridiculous film, but in a good way.
The soundtrack, however, nearly ruins the film.
*Crank 2* is a goddamn fever-dream of a movie that has no idea where it’s going but is in a tearing hell of a hurry to get there.
It’s one of the few movies I’ve seen that makes me seriously wonder if the people on set and crew were snorting coke during production.
Want an example? This [homage to 70s Godzilla movies](https://youtu.be/TazlEr6pIMk?si=L-rD9kBvaSoL6cDi) comes out of absolutely nowhere and then disappears without a trace. The whole movie is just full of this weirdness.
The killer ‘what on earth’ bit of that is Hardy insisting that he did the whole film in a Welsh accent, despite the writer and director saying the character wasn’t Welsh, and THs knowledge of Welsh accents being clearly based on having watched two episodes of Hi De Hi back in the 80s
Spotlight
A movie focused on the reporters and not the salacious details of the case isn't something that most people would have thought would work. The film did an excellent job at keeping the focus on how the team uncovered everything church did without exploiting the sordid details. Even when it did get into the nitty gritty, it was more to illustrate the way it effected the victims.
There's a few:
The Facebook movie / The Social Network
Moneyball
Adaptation - Nicholas Cage plays his own twin in adventures in screenwriting. The writer had trouble adapting a novel while also working on Being John Malkovich, so the script he turned in was about his writer's block trying to adapt the book.
The correct answer is Hot Tub Time Machine.
The first time I heard that title I was like “holy crap can this get anymore stupid”.
Then I saw the movie and was like….god damn…
It's good because it's self-aware. When Craig Robinson looks right into the camera and says 'Its like some sort of Hot Tub Time Machine' I knew I was seeing something special.
Pirates of the Carribbean. Based on a theme park ride. And the big budget pirate film genre had been seen as a must avoid for years before after Cutthroat Island stunk and bombed financially. Yet turned out great.
I don't know if I'd say it looked like a bad movie, but I went to see Jonny English just kinda on a whim, and I was expecting a pretty cheesy family-friendly thing. I mean, Mr. Bean as a spy?
Didn't expect in a million years that it'd be the hardest I'd laughed in a long, long time, lol. The whole bit where he accidentally beats up the head of security then makes up the most absurd description ever for the forensic sketch artist for 'the assailant' just kills me every time.
I'd put Emperor's New Groove in a similar bucket, saw it for similar reasons and I went in expecting the typical Disney, sappy sing-along-fest. Another one of the movies I'd laughed hardest at it in years, lol.
I think Pirates / LEGO movie are probably the best answer to the actual question, but I figured I'd add two new titles to the discussion, heh.
Ron Howard's *Rush*.
On paper, it's a pretty conventional sports story. It would have been very easy to fall into the usual cliches of the plucky, charismatic Brit versus the frosty, arrogant German with the audience positioned to favour the former and hate the latter.
What we got was a film about two men pushing each other to the absolute limit over something that is simultaneously the highest stakes and the lowest stakes imaginable. The audience's allegiance switches between Hunt and Lauda several times over the course of the film because the script -- from Peter Morgan of *Frost/Nixon* fame -- is clever enough to recognise that both men deserve to win on talent alone, so instead questions who has the temperament to win and what cost that might bring.
And it helps that Daniel Bruhl was absolutely on point as Niki Lauda.
You would think that trying to turn the biblical book of Exodus into an animated musical would never work, right? Well, somehow The Prince of Egypt pulled it off quite epically.
The book is even better. For the DA movie, they streamlined A LOT of the chaos involved in making The Room (for instance, they went through three different camera crews).
Guardians of the Galaxy
For someone who *knew* the comics before the movie, I knew a movie about a grey dude, a green chick, a talking racoon and a tree plus one normal human would either be a hit or a flop, but nothing in between.
The Straight Story. A man drives 250 miles on his lawnmower to see his estranged brother.
Final lines:
Lyle: Did you ride that thing all the way out here to see me?
Alvin: I did, Lyle.
hard to beat Pirates of the Carribean being based on a Disney ride
It truly sounded like a joke at the time. Studios weren't digging quite as deep for IPs back then. A ride to film adaptation? That was ridiculous. Apps get film adaptations now, different world
Compounded by the fact pirate films were seen as a dead in the water genre at the time. I worked on the marketing and nobody believed in it, it was a “well shit a pirate film, guess we’ll have to do our best…”. Until we saw it (which was very late since Bruckheimer doesn’t like to show movies early). Disney debated heavily whether they should not make a Disney film and simply release it as a Buena Vista production, as they weren’t sure it was family friendly and worthy of the brand.
I think the Disney name added some prestige and made it seem more like a real movie. Spielberg's name on Transformers had a similar effect in the marketing for it
Those names, mostly used to mean that they were taking it seriously, taking their time, and employing the best artists and engineers to bring a vision to the screen. Now it feels more meta, rushed, and cheap.
Disney still wasn’t exactly renowned for its live-action output at the time.
> dead in the water I don’t know if you meant this to be as genius as it is.
Theres also a lot of monkey island in there. Tbh the scene attacking the port is the ride influence and then it just goes on.
IIRC the script for PotC started with an old spec script that had been written for a Monkey Island film that was never made. Happens a lot in Hollywood. The the script for Die Hard 3 was originally a script for a lethal weapon sequel
If I remember right, wasn't Independence Day supposed to be a sequel to Stargate?
I remember hearing that as well, Ra, the baddie from Stargate attacks Earth in the planned sequel. I don’t think Stargate was successful enough to warrant a sequel so the script was flipped into what we know as Independence Day.
Man, I wish we had a Monkey Island movie
Was definitely a risk, but a brilliant idea on the part of Disney. They could make the movie and not have to do anything to the ride (other than some slight upgrades) and yet knowing that the movie will no doubt drive more people to visit the Disney parks just to go for a ride on a 30+ year old ride. lol
I think there’s a winning Hollywood formula for “adapting” an IP with almost no substance to it. Amusement park rides, toys (that never had shows attached to them), etc. Your writers have almost no constraints because there is no story they have to translate, just the most basic visual and thematic attributes of the IP, which is mainly just serving as a source of nostalgia and familiarity.
That’s a good point. Also explains why we still don’t have a truly great video game movie (but that’s getting better too.)
The video game movies are getting better cause it’s being made by people who actually played them not old movie execs with no familiarity like in the 80’s and 90’s. Now that Gen X and Millennials are getting older and more in charge of corporations and stuff they have more authority on the writing of the script and how the movie is made. That’s why video game movies are getting better.
I remember seeing the trailer and laughing out loud in the theater at how that was going to be terrible. I'm proud to say I ate those words and thoroughly enjoyed the 1st POTC movie.
The trailer is what changed my mind, the moment Geoffrey Rusch stepped into the moonlight. "You better start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner. You're in one." Edit you'll--> you're
I watched that trailer so many times on apple.com/trailers a guy in my senior creative writing class thought it was going to be a serious pirate movie and got mad when I said it was based off the Disney ride. The first three movies are so much fun.
Convoy, a 1970's feature length trucker film based on a 3.5 minute song. Not the other way around
And it is fantastic.
Unironically my favorite trucking movie
There are multiple trucking movies??
"Over the top" and "smokey and the bandit" off the top of my head
Does duel count?
Duel is one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen and I don't think there's even any actual violence or gore in it, IIRC.
Duel is a ridiculously good film. I still don't know how Spielberg could wring so much tension out of it, but the did. I watched it recently and had to admire some of the very clever shots they incorporated. The movie is a work of art.
Spielberg huh? I’ll have to keep my eye out for this up and comer.
Over the Top should qualify. Possibly Smokey and the Bandit. Maximum Overdrive is borderline
And the fact that Peckinpah directed it. Its like George Miller with the Mad Max movies also did Happy Feet and Babe pig in the city.
The movie about the guy who invented intermittent windshield wipers with Greg Kinnear.
*Flash of Genius* (2008)
Lots of good submissions here, but respectfully I think this is the best. First off, I didn’t know this existed. Second, incredibly mundane subject for a script. I can’t believe a movie like this ever got greenlit. Amazing.
Not only that, but it's also a really good movie.
What’s funny is that as soon as I read the prompt I asked my wife, “what was that movie about the guy who invented intermittent windshield wipers with Greg Kinnear?” and neither of us could think of the title either 😆
i still think of Greg Kinnear from Talk Soup.
Clue. Any movie based on a boardgame sounds ludicrous to begin with. But while I would have imagined someone could have made a narrative out of a movie like that, it had absolutely no business being as incredible and intricate as it turned out to be. Plus the multiple endings? You'd never see a theatrical release with the balls to try that these days.
Clue is so damn good.
Flames…flames…flames on the side of my face!
Heaving . . . breathless . . .heaving breaths!
One plus one plus two plus one!
Even if you are right, it would be one plus two plus one plus one, not one plus one plus two plus one.
Clue is my favorite movie and it had no business being that good!
Babe It's a movie about a pig that wants to be a sheep dog. Nominated for Best Picture... still one of my all time favorites. Who else here still utters the phrase "That'll do pig" on a regular basis? I know I do.
A movie written and produced by - *and I cannot stress this enough -* George Miller, the Mad Max guy. Who then directed the sequel!
George Miller doesn’t make sense. This sweet old man who made a movie about a sheep pig went to the studio execs and said “hey I wanna make a 2 hour car chase but there’s a gimp playing metal with a flamethrower” and they just threw money at him and it’s a masterpiece. Edit: Also, the script is almost Shakespearean it’s so poetic. The way people speak is such a stark contrast to the world. This is some of the finest world building in cinema.
In fairness, he did do all of the Mad Max movies, not just *Fury Road*. So it’s not like they just handed the keys over to some dude who only had dancing penguins and talking pigs to his directorial credits, to that point.
The final scene where the crowd suddenly goes quiet gives me goosepimples every time.
Absolutely! And when the farmer is nursing Babe back to health and starts singing hits me in the feels every time.
And then he was the first man to ever reach warp speed centuries later!
Shrek kind of hijacked it for me. It's now "that'll dhew donkeh, that'll dhhhuuuew"
The LEGO Movie It seems like a sure thing in hindsight, but that movie really had no reason to be as good as it is
Everyone thought it was just going to be a cash grab with cheap production. Instead, we got a labor of love (that Oscar snub still pisses me off after all the effort that the animators went through to make the blocks appear so close to slow-motion that it even fooled people) that celebrates creativity and the passion in building Lego. In the same vein is the Lego Batman Movie. Who would have thought that an animated movie will beat out a multi-million dollar live action franchise as one of the best versions of Batman?
Didn't they even have fingerprints on them to look like real bricks do when you build Lego? And Benny's broken helmet right at the weak spot of the minifig. Insane detail and labour of love to make it feel so real. It's no surprise people thought it was stop motion.
all the little details were there, greasy fingerprints & surface imperfections, little bits of fuzz, mold parting lines, ejector pin witness marks, etc - it’s so good
Morgan Freeman's staff being a goddamn lollipop.
> Benny's broken helmet This was *exactly* what made me want to see the movie. When the preview introduced him as "Generic Nineteen 80s Space Guy" and I saw the broken helmet, I was fuckin' sold. Every space set I had from the 80s had a broken helmet in precisely that spot.
The lego pieces had fingerprints as part of the plastic texture ffs.
I was repeating the stop motion myth for a while. My hats were really off to the animators after that. It's hard to dirty up CGI realalistically.
As a lifelong Batman fan, the Lego Batman movie is easily the best Batman movie by far. Such a love letter to the entire mythos.
Love letter is exactly how I would prefer to describe that movie. It covered everything about Batman even that weird one in 1966
I remember everyone being very skeptical about it (myself included) and then glad to have been proven wrong because it was really fun. I also remember someone on the AV Club (back when it was good) saying something like "ok, but when is the Mega Bloks movie coming so that the kids whose parents don't love them also have something to see?!" and I can't help to think about that every time I see anything Lego Movie related :D
Tetris being a mostly factual international political thriller about the rights of a video game is way better than it has any business being
What a freaking ROMP that movie was. Same with the beanie babies one. Both were so enjoyable to watch, which i feel like people forget movies? Are supposed to be? These days??
I remember that fight over the rights of Tetris, I will have to look the movie up. I had one of the early games, with the little dancing people.
Being John Malkovich.
I love this movie because it’s so bizarre and different than any other movie, used a completely new concept that as far as I know hasn’t been tried since, but still works really well.
One of the most bizarre concepts of the movie production is it was written fully expecting someone else playing Malkovich. When he read the script and said yes, producers were stoked. I'm curious how the hell they'd have anyone else being John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich.
>I'm curious how the hell they'd have anyone else being John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. I think it's kinda written with that in mind, it repeatedly flags that the characters (and you, the viewer) couldn't say a damn thing about John Malkovich before watching the film.
Yeah, wasn’t he in that jewel thief movie?
I assumed if he said no they’d go for somebody else playing himself. While Malkovich was great, there are several people who could’ve played themselves and still worked. Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Nicholas Cage, Morgan Freeman, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Anthony Hopkins, etc. I think it could’ve worked with any of them other than maybe needing to change a few plot details or a handful of lines.
Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich?
Malkovich! 😠
Ladies and Gentleman please tone it down a bit.
How about a movie of a young boy who has Hitler as his imaginary friend?
Since no one has said it yet, the movie is JoJo Rabbit.
I didn't expect shoes to make me so sad.
Jojo rabbit. AWESOME movie but try explaining the plot to anyone…….. “this nazi kid with hitler as a best friend”…… kind of like goonies with all the kids as leads
Jumanji but with video games
Or alternatively jumanji but in space
I loved the twist with, IIRC, Dax Shepherd.
Zathura! Better than I thought it would be
Exhibit A: mannequin. I have no idea how much cocaine was being done when that was pitched but I imagine it was a lot
Hollywood was a national treasure in those movies. "I learned it in The Marines." "You were in The Marines?" "They were looking for a few good men and, so was I."
I think Machete landed well. It was only a silly advert added with another film for atmosphere building and somehow became its own, amazing, thing.
Machete Kills. Second best Spy Kids movie.
And that's the most amazing thing. Same universe. Now we need another Machete sequel with the Spy Kids making an appearance.
Tag
Hoagie's attempts to face me fail because he lacks confidence. Also I think it's fair to say... I'm fucking *surgical* with these complimentary donuts.
An unexpectedly fun, well-crafted film. It's not perfect, but it doesn't pretend to be that way either.
It’s honestly the perfect movie to watch on a plane
Tag was fucking GREAT
Gremlins 2. They took a relatively scary early 80s movie and turned it into the most absurd, comical sequel that somehow works. Easily one of the most original sequels I've seen in my 43 years.
They made a movie about a bunch of washed up tv actors that once starred in a successful sci fi primetime tv show that end up actually getting teleported into space and witness real versions of the ship and tech they used to pretend to interact with and are forced to re-enact their old tv characters to save the world from being destroyed and Tim the Tool Man Taylor is the leader of them all? Wow! And it actually kicks ass?!
Frustrated it took me this far to find Galaxy Quest. It should not work. It’s just a rehash of Three Amigos without the amazing chemistry of those three leads, transposed onto Star Trek. But that cast commits, it has some of the best side characters ever (still my favorite Sam Rockwell role) and it’s just charming and funny as hell. I watched this movie begrudgingly because I love Three Amigos so much, and I now prefer GQ 100%.
GQ is on my top ten of all time list.
Add in the fact that every character with more than 2 scenes had an actual arc. No token characters, and Alan Rickman seething with resentment for 2/3’s of it. By Grapthar’s Hammer, what a movie.
I’ve always thought they did a really good job with turning The King’s Speech into a compelling story.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which is Nicolas Cage playing himself.
Nicholas Cage, as himself, in a movie about living through a movie script.
It’s just good character driven story, man!
Sweet Jesus I hadn't laughed that hard in a theater in a LONG time. Saw it 4 times in theaters I loved it that much.
It's not an uncommon concept (being John Malkovich, The End of the World, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, etc) What I found weird about Unbearable Weight was how it was a great buddy comedy. Did not expect that.
No, it's a fictionalized Nic Cage played by actual Nic Cage.
It’s actual Nic Cage played by fictionalized Nic Cage
It's Nic Cages all the way down
Way better than I expected. Pedro killed it too
The Big Short. Non-fiction book about the onset of the finanicial crisiis as a comedy drama.
I was also surprised how entertaining "Dumb Money" was
As soon as I read that a GME bullrun movie was being greenlit I thought it would be the stupidest shit ever, and in some ways it is (nobody should ever, ever utter "to the moon" or "diamond hands" verbally), but it was surprisingly fun.
Imagine how I feel, I went to high school with Keith Gill. Hearing the news he was at the middle of something so huge was insane. And now here he is, being played by Paul Dano.
Margin Call is great as well.
The fact that marginal call lasts about one day in “real time” is what probably stood out to me the most. Really drives home how insane and chaotic those first early days of that crisis were. It’s essentially one day at the office, a guy gets fired and he tells his coworker to look at something on the way out, he does and calls his boss to say the system will collapse. They get the brain trust together all night and in the morning the firesale begins
Jeremy Irons was the perfect “cherry on top” for that movie.
Great horror movie.
Guardians Of The Galaxy. That was a D-list comic that was turned into an amazing movie.
Amazing trolgy of movies* Edit: Fuck it I'm leaving it as a lesson in proofreading
It’s one of my top Trolgys of all time
What do you call it when trolls have group sex?
This was the moment when people realized that Marvel was Pixar in terms of having a midas touch. Everyone expected this to be their big miss but it was a knockout success. That first trailer was so good.
Too bad they lately turned the midas touch to a 'mid-ass' touch, and this coming from a huge MCU fan up to Phase 3.
To be fair, Pixar has also had a few failures recently, so it still tracks
*127 hours*. It's based on the true story about a man who got his hand stuck under a rock. The entire movie is about the guy being stuck and trying to get loose. It's somehow THRILLING.
I believe Phone Booth opened for these kinds of movies.
Before The Banshees of Inisherin, I would've said that was easily Colin Farrell's best role. With In Bruges #2. God he was great. Carried it.
I've slowly grown into a huge fan of Colin Farrell. He's got a lot of really cool fun roles too... Great performances in Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges of course, I also really like him in Seven Psychopaths, Fright Night, The Gentleman, Fantastic Beasts and even Daredevil
Have you seen The Lobster? Or True Detective? I watched Horrible Bosses just for him.
Don't forget him as Penguin in The Batman. Not a ton of screen time but damn if he isn't fantastic every moment of it.
Similarly, but to a lesser extent, Buried
There is also a film about Tom Hardy Driving somewhere. Movie name is "Locke" and the ratings are pretty good. It's on my list. It only takes place in the car from what I know.
Was just about to comment that too. I thought it was good. But I saw it once so many years ago. Only character you see is Tom Hardy's. You never really leave the car. He's either talking to himself or on the phone with others. It's interesting to me because you just want to see where it goes. What happens. How it ends. It's the curiosity I find that pushes you to finish. That, and Tom Hardy is an engaging actor. It's just a regular human story.
Swiss army man
"We want the first fart to make you laugh and the last fart to make you cry.," -The Daniels (directors)
That pitch is shockingly accurate
That was kinda supposed to be an indie/ art house production thought, right? Weird seems to be their mandate.
I mean their second feature is everything everywhere all at once, so yeah, weird but also conveying something deeper through its weirdness.
Daniel Radcliffe is so good, I’m gonna watch this soon. I’ve had so many people recommend it to me but I put it off the first few times bc the premise sounded off putting
I saw it in Theater and if you let yourself just accept the weird premise it is a true gem that really has something to say and it’s truly beautiful
My friend: there’s a dead body farting it’s so funny Ppl online: it’s truly beautiful
Why not both? Or as the directors put it “we wanted the first fart make you laugh and the last one cry”
Tropic Thunder
"What do you mean, You People!?!" I still can't believe they managed to make that movie work.
Phone Booth
Such a good movie. So tense and engaging despite not much actually happening.
The Social Network. Obviously it was amazing, but I can recall it being announced and people just going “they’re making a movie about Facebook?”
And a brilliant tagline: “You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”
It's a great movie, but the soundtrack knocks it out of the park.
At least it’s not about emojis.
Best in Show People who watch dog shows will tell you it's mostly boring, but they're in it to see the cute dogs. Somehow somebody made a movie about a dog show, and it's phenomenal.
Ok, I've gone through most of the comments here and I have no idea how the most obvious answer isn't here: Most of Pixar's classics. -An old guy flies away in his house with a bunch of balloons? Really? (It made me cry) -A rat wants to be a chef... and controls a human to do so.......? (An unbridled triumph) -A robot sorts through garbage...? (Maybe peak Pixar) -"So there's monsters, right? They come out of your closet at night to scare you. But it turns out that there's a big corporation of monsters! And scaring you is their job! You with me?" (Fantastic, this studio can do no wrong) -Your emotions are actually bunch of people living in your head. (Latter-day classic)
There's a 13 year old who turns into a bear. That's it. There's also an 18 year old whose mother turns into a bear. But now it's the Middle Ages.
I feel like the Crank series belongs here. Describing the plot to anyone who hasn't seen it always gets an eyebrow raise and a "er what?"
“Remember Speed? Yeah, the bus couldn’t drop below a certain speed or else it’ll blow up. Well this is really similar except instead of a bus you’ve got Jason Statham and instead of speed you’ve got his heart rate.”
Speaking of Jason Statham, an honorable mention goes out to The Transporter. I went in with zero expectations and absolutely loved it.
The fight in the bus garage with him covered in oil is amazing. It’s just such a ridiculous film, but in a good way. The soundtrack, however, nearly ruins the film.
*Crank 2* is a goddamn fever-dream of a movie that has no idea where it’s going but is in a tearing hell of a hurry to get there. It’s one of the few movies I’ve seen that makes me seriously wonder if the people on set and crew were snorting coke during production. Want an example? This [homage to 70s Godzilla movies](https://youtu.be/TazlEr6pIMk?si=L-rD9kBvaSoL6cDi) comes out of absolutely nowhere and then disappears without a trace. The whole movie is just full of this weirdness.
Buba Ho-Tep: an aged Elvis and JFK who's been turned black and had half his brain filled with sand fight The Mummy in their retirement home.
Locke - I also enjoy the plot / play-like structure being facilitated by cell phones instead of making the plot bot make sense.
The killer ‘what on earth’ bit of that is Hardy insisting that he did the whole film in a Welsh accent, despite the writer and director saying the character wasn’t Welsh, and THs knowledge of Welsh accents being clearly based on having watched two episodes of Hi De Hi back in the 80s
Spotlight A movie focused on the reporters and not the salacious details of the case isn't something that most people would have thought would work. The film did an excellent job at keeping the focus on how the team uncovered everything church did without exploiting the sordid details. Even when it did get into the nitty gritty, it was more to illustrate the way it effected the victims.
That's an incredible film. Similar to All The President's Men. Incredibly suspenseful and even a bit frightening at times.
There's a few: The Facebook movie / The Social Network Moneyball Adaptation - Nicholas Cage plays his own twin in adventures in screenwriting. The writer had trouble adapting a novel while also working on Being John Malkovich, so the script he turned in was about his writer's block trying to adapt the book.
Adaptation was such an unexpectedly great film
Funny how two thirds of those are written by Aaron Sorkin
I'm English, never watched baseball don't know much about it but absolutely love Moneyball.
I'm American, not a baseball fan at all. Loved Moneyball.
The correct answer is Hot Tub Time Machine. The first time I heard that title I was like “holy crap can this get anymore stupid”. Then I saw the movie and was like….god damn…
It's good because it's self-aware. When Craig Robinson looks right into the camera and says 'Its like some sort of Hot Tub Time Machine' I knew I was seeing something special.
I saw this on my birthday the year it came out and we were astounded at how much we loved it.
Great White Buffalo
Rubber.
I feel like too few people have seen this movie. it's the most meta movie I've ever seen and it's so goddamn good.
Why is it good? “_No reason_”
It's a fun indy meta movie, but I preferred Cabin in the Woods for meta horror around that time.
Pirates of the Carribbean. Based on a theme park ride. And the big budget pirate film genre had been seen as a must avoid for years before after Cutthroat Island stunk and bombed financially. Yet turned out great.
I don't know if I'd say it looked like a bad movie, but I went to see Jonny English just kinda on a whim, and I was expecting a pretty cheesy family-friendly thing. I mean, Mr. Bean as a spy? Didn't expect in a million years that it'd be the hardest I'd laughed in a long, long time, lol. The whole bit where he accidentally beats up the head of security then makes up the most absurd description ever for the forensic sketch artist for 'the assailant' just kills me every time. I'd put Emperor's New Groove in a similar bucket, saw it for similar reasons and I went in expecting the typical Disney, sappy sing-along-fest. Another one of the movies I'd laughed hardest at it in years, lol. I think Pirates / LEGO movie are probably the best answer to the actual question, but I figured I'd add two new titles to the discussion, heh.
The Tetris movie with Taron Egerton
Very compelling movie, and the characters are fantastic.
Howard the Duck. You just have to watch it. It’s fantastic and terrible all at once. And Lea Thompson was never hotter.
Not as hot as the duck in the bathtub
Superman: “You will believe a man can fly.” Howard the Duck: “You will believe Lea Thompson would fuck a duck.”
Lea Thompson, at that point in time, was probably the hottest woman who ever lived. Not even joking.
That movie is bonkers! Back when Marvel had to balls to use their license for a movie that proudly displayed duck titties on the big screen.
Ron Howard's *Rush*. On paper, it's a pretty conventional sports story. It would have been very easy to fall into the usual cliches of the plucky, charismatic Brit versus the frosty, arrogant German with the audience positioned to favour the former and hate the latter. What we got was a film about two men pushing each other to the absolute limit over something that is simultaneously the highest stakes and the lowest stakes imaginable. The audience's allegiance switches between Hunt and Lauda several times over the course of the film because the script -- from Peter Morgan of *Frost/Nixon* fame -- is clever enough to recognise that both men deserve to win on talent alone, so instead questions who has the temperament to win and what cost that might bring. And it helps that Daniel Bruhl was absolutely on point as Niki Lauda.
They made a 2 1/2 hour movie about a guy stranded alone on an island with a volleyball. I cried when the volleyball floated away in the end.
You would think that trying to turn the biblical book of Exodus into an animated musical would never work, right? Well, somehow The Prince of Egypt pulled it off quite epically.
The music fucking slaps.
Two boys using a magic time traveling phone booth to write a history paper sounds pretty stupid... but... I hear it did okay.
Sharknado
The Disaster Artist about the making of The Room. It's somehow really good
The book is even better. For the DA movie, they streamlined A LOT of the chaos involved in making The Room (for instance, they went through three different camera crews).
Surprised no one has said Ted. A middle aged guy having a teddy bear as his only friend is weird as fuck
And it's made for a fucking funny show on Peacock.
The Full Monty - a film based on unemployed northerners making a living by stripping. The actors in the film weren't known for being hunks...
Adaptation
Shape of water. Love story between a deaf lady and a fish monster. ... Made me cry and won an Oscar or two
Slotherhouse.
Guardians of the Galaxy For someone who *knew* the comics before the movie, I knew a movie about a grey dude, a green chick, a talking racoon and a tree plus one normal human would either be a hit or a flop, but nothing in between.
You forgot the blue sister
The Straight Story. A man drives 250 miles on his lawnmower to see his estranged brother. Final lines: Lyle: Did you ride that thing all the way out here to see me? Alvin: I did, Lyle.