Wednesday 19 May 2010

Pop Quiz, Hotshots

OK youse guys, let's see if you know your movies. Here's a series of events that happen in a specific film. All you have to do is name the film:


Did you get it? Of course you did. Everything described above happens in The Marine 2, the film The Incredible Suit challenged itself to watch after seeing this, and which, it should be noted, does not carry the disclaimer "Any resemblance to Die Hard is unintentional and purely coincidental".

And while Die Hard might have the edge in terms of a clever, witty script, memorable characters, excellently choreographed fight scenes, amazing stunts, a terrific score, actors who can act and skipfuls of lens flares, what it doesn't have, that The Marine 2 does, include:

A bizarrely abstract DVD menu screen that looks like
what you see when you're drunk and you close your eyes

Bafflingly vague location intertitles that imply there's
only one US Marine Base in the whole of Southeast Asia

Subtle product placement

A soldier called Phil Army

So it's difficult to decide which is the better film. Although I don't see Tesco taking out massive adverts for the Die Hard DVD, so I think the evidence speaks for itself.

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7 comments :

  1. This Copy Cat film gives me an excuse to mention genius Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film The Seven Samurai copied sometimes shot for shot as The Magnificent Seven 1960.

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  2. Where did Phil Army get that illustrious mustache?

    Also, thank you for braving this. Your effort shant go unrewarded.

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  3. I think he had it done by Dave Barber.

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  4. You're right about the product placement.That's a Victoria's Secret camisole if I'm not mistaken.

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  5. When I spoke of Akira Kurosawa's 'Seven Samurai' being copied by Hollywood, I was hoping that someone would point out that his films 'Ran' 1985 and 'Throne of Blood' 1957 were copies of the Bard's 'King Lear' and 'Macbeth'. Sadly it seems that Kurosawa is a neglected genius. 'Dreams' 1990 is beautiful.

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  6. Penguin Party mentions a 1959 film unknown to me 'Forged in Honour' which may be 'Forged as a Joke' Around that time Kurosawa made 'Yojimbo' which was 'The Bodyguard' another idea borrowed later by Hollywood.

    "Dude, Where's My Cat?" is about the spanking Captain Bligh of the chocolate & coconut bar bulk carrier 'Bounty' and his liking to be flogged with a cat-o-nine-tails. The crew cast him adrift then created a porn colony on Tristram de Cojones Island.

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