2011 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[SPX]

I saw Redbelt because Mamet is a legit writer and I know that he is a true fan of bjj. It was so disappointing.

I thought it was okay. Where it really went off the rails was with the whole handicap-hands-tied-behind-the-back thing. Just taking out that one element would make it a much better movie.

These guys trying to do the MTV version of MMA are just hacks trying to cash in.

From the studio perspective, maybe. But Michael Jai White is a legit martial artist and has trained with Machida. In fact, Machida makes a small guest appearance in NBD 2.

Warrior looks like the first legit movie to take MMA seriously. I might see that eventually. But it doesn't look particularly good to me, so no rush.

Warrior was great. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[SPX]

Fighting had absolutely nothing to do with MMA. It's about a street vendor who sells bootleg merchandise and how he gets wrapped up in the world of no holds barred STREET fighting for a quick buck. At no point is there anything even remotely to do with MMA aside from the fact that he was a highschool wrestler under his father.

Maybe that's why I never saw it. I do remember that it had Cung Le, though.

[poopoo333]

Yeah Fighting was fucking lame.

[sbjj]

I believe it will be incredibly hard to produce an MMA film that real MMA fans will like. I went into Warrior with high hopes but was disappointed. To me it was just a drama with MMA as a setting. The training scenes and smaller fight scenes were the best part to me. I actually thought Redbelt was not to bad. I at least think it really tried to be good. Never back down and Fighting were straight out horrible.

I keep expecting a low budget gritty brazilian film to come out about a brazilian kid coming out of poverty to stardom through MMA. Kinda like a brazilian slumdog millionaire. shit, maybe I should start up the script.

[SPX]

I believe it will be incredibly hard to produce an MMA film that real MMA fans will like. I went into Warrior with high hopes but was disappointed. To me it was just a drama with MMA as a setting. The training scenes and smaller fight scenes were the best part to me. I actually thought Redbelt was not to bad. I at least think it really tried to be good. Never back down and Fighting were straight out horrible.

I thought Warrior was a lot better than Redbelt. Redbelt was decent . . . Warrior was genuinely good.

As for Never Back Down, it is what it is. Like I said before, it follows the Karate Kid formula: High school kid goes to a new school (if I remember correctly), gets beat up by bullies, learns martial arts from a master who takes him under his wing, and then exacts revenge on the bullies using his newfound skills in a martial arts tournament. If you are okay with that formula, then you should like NBD, because I think it was a competent execution of it. If you don't like that formula, then you should watch something else.

I keep expecting a low budget gritty brazilian film to come out about a brazilian kid coming out of poverty to stardom through MMA. Kinda like a brazilian slumdog millionaire. shit, maybe I should start up the script.

Isn't that still just a drama with an MMA setting? Because the real story is the kid rising up out of poverty. MMA could be replaced with soccer or becoming a doctor.

[sbjj]

Yea, but in my film you would see how the KID learned his skill and how he came up all the different levels to become a star. Not have already established fake MMA fighters fighting UFC fighters and WWE wrestlers in a incredibly unlikely winner takes all tournament.

As for the comparison of Never back down and Karate Kid. The difference is that Karate Kid was a GOOD movie. It had likeable characters and to a certain degree it seemed real. the characters were not MTV/Model cutouts with limited acting skills. It was a funny and sentimental film. never back down was a movie full of model/actors just exploiting MMA(just my opinion).

[MMA_scientist]

Isn't that still just a drama with an MMA setting? Because the real story is the kid rising up out of poverty. MMA could be replaced with soccer or becoming a doctor.

Movies about a sport need a plot. I would like to see an MMA biopic in the Vein of "Ali" or "Tyson." Even Rocky (well Rocky 1) barely had any boxing in it. Every other boxing movie I can think of was a comedy. I did like "Diggstown." For an MMA movie to succeed IMO, it really needs to be about the individual, or maybe a team, real or fictional.

That said, only football, hockey, boxing, basketball and baseball have really had good movies made about them. Most sports don't get quality movies (quick- what is your favorite soccer/tennis/wrestling/swimming/diving/fencing/polo movie?), so I don't expect too much more here. MMA is still a small sport compared to the big sports, I don't expect a super well done movie.

[MMA_scientist]

Karate Kid is a great movie IMO. Probably still one of my favorite sports movies. NBD can suck Ralph Macchio's 37 year old high school balls.

[sbjj]

Real Steel had more believable fight scenes than Never back down.

[sbjj]

You can tell a good movie on how well it holds up through time. I loved Karate Kid when it came out. I recently watched it again with my 7 yr. old daughter and we both enjoyed it. It was just a movie that made you laugh and made you feel good.

[SPX]

. . . in a incredibly unlikely winner takes all tournament.

As unlikely as UFC 1, I guess.

As for the comparison of Never back down and Karate Kid. The difference is that Karate Kid was a GOOD movie. It had likeable characters and to a certain degree it seemed real. the characters were not MTV/Model cutouts with limited acting skills. It was a funny and sentimental film. never back down was a movie full of model/actors just exploiting MMA(just my opinion).

I would agree that NBD is a shallower film than The Karate Kid and that Karate Kid is a BETTER movie. But Never Back Down is still essentially the same movie for the MTV/MMA generation.

You may be right that the studio was "exploiting MMA" but neither you nor I know the circumstances surrounding whoever came up with the original idea for the film. Maybe he's a real MMA fan. Maybe he's even a fighter. We don't know. Would it surprise you to learn that some real MMA love went into the making of this movie? It would not surprise ME because the MMA in the film is pretty accurate so, at the very least, it's obvious that the fight choreographer wanted to be true to the sport. That indicates more than just an attitude to "cash in."

Here's an excerpt from Maitland McDonagh's (TV Guide) 3-star review:

"This unlikely hybrid of THE KARATE KID (1984) and FIGHT CLUB (1999) is formulaic and derivative, but sufficiently well made to work as both teen-angst melodrama and bone-rattling brawl picture."

I can't say that I made the NBD-Fight Club connection, but otherwise that pretty much sums up my feelings about the film as well.

[sbjj]

When UFC 1 occured just about no one knew what MMA was(at least in the states). Yet the film was set present day with a 5 million dollar prize for the best Middleweight(yea, you read it) on the planet. That shit is as close to fiction as you can get. They might as well of had vampires fighting in the cage.

i would just like to see a real gritty MMA movie that shows the progression of a tough street kid becoming a disciplined martial artists. Not a movie full of 45 year old teachers fighting their own brothers along with WWE wrestlers.

[SPX]

Movies about a sport need a plot. I would like to see an MMA biopic in the Vein of "Ali" or "Tyson." Even Rocky (well Rocky 1) barely had any boxing in it. Every other boxing movie I can think of was a comedy. I did like "Diggstown." For an MMA movie to succeed IMO, it really needs to be about the individual, or maybe a team, real or fictional.

First, I didn't say an MMA movie didn't need a plot. I was reacting to sbjj's criticism of Warrior.

As for non-comedy/non-Rocky boxing movies, you forgot about Million Dollar Baby and The Fighter.

[SPX]

Real Steel had more believable fight scenes than Never back down.

Well the fight scenes in Real Steel were choreographed by Sugar Ray Leonard, so I'm not overwhelmingly surprised.

[sbjj]

If you enjoyed Never back down that is fine. There are plenty of movies people hate that i Loved. I absolutely loved the Postman. Yet almost every human on earth seems to hate it. But i just personally hated Never back down. The fucking characters were so shallow. i did not even care who beat the shit out of who. And I just wanted the females in the movie to take their tops off and do jumping jacks. Which shames me, because was it not set in high school?