Comments for Zarban.com » Will.Smith

Comment on Independence Day (theatrical cut) by Mike

Mike — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 18:39:45 +0000

Come on, Zarban. Brent Spiner totally exists.

Comment on Independence Day (theatrical cut) by Zarban

Zarban — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:52:29 +0000

Just listened to the beginning of this, but I agree with Max. Everybody at the time was crazy about this movie, and I was like, “Really? Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum destroy an alien fleet with a Macbook and Randy Quaid?” Judd Hirsch plays the Jewish guy from Nazi propaganda movies? The President of the United States flies a jet in the attack? Brent Spiner exists?

Comment on Wild Wild West by Zarban

Zarban — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:00:58 +0000

Adudathuda takes a hard look at WWW. They don’t all hate it, which is fun. Matt goes to bat for it and busts out the factoids, altho early on he says “world war” when he means “Civil War”.

Tequila s/n 14052239

Blair Witch Project was not bad but had a total cheat-crap ending, and that makes it worse than this.

Comment on Independence Day (theatrical cut) by Bradley

Bradley — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:18:18 +0000

The DIF crew have so much love for this movie that its almost infectious.

Excellent track.

Comment on Independence Day (theatrical cut) by Zarban

Zarban — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:58:26 +0000

Down in Front has a lot of fun with the Roland Emmerich disaster that wasn’t a complete disaster. They deconstruct the film in an attempt to understand why it works as well as it does. They admire the aliens’ plan. They plan where they will be when they get killed in an alien invasion. They’ve been drinking, so there’s a fair bit of crosstalk again.

“DefCon” just means “defense condition”.

Truman had the eagle’s head in the presidential seal switched to be looking toward the olive branch (peace) instead of the arrows (war), but Brian is right that it’s a myth that it switches back and forth.

It’s Harvey “Fire-steen”. Vivica, Michael, and Megan were all born Foxes. Only MJF changed his name, and only to avoid being “Michael A Fox”.

Titanic was the “definitive example” of a movie that sucked; that’s what it was the “definitive example” of.

Rossalynn Carter is still alive! She is not out a farm playing with other first ladies!

“The opera ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings” is attributed to sportscaster Ralph Carpenter, tho based on earlier sayings.

Comment on Men in Black by Zarban

Zarban — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:04:26 +0000

Very good commentary from Down in Front with the creator of the comic book. Plenty of background and chat about the special effects.

Siobhan Fallon’s first name is pronounced “sha-VON” (it’s Irish).

Gratuitous Departed spoilers at 1h 36m.

Comment on I, Robot by Zarban

Zarban — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:06:16 +0000

Really good work from Tysto and Speakeasy. They go deep into the robot uprising movie, with great bits of humor and terrific analysis.

Comment on Wild Wild West by Zarban

Zarban — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:20:37 +0000

Down in Front decapitates the Will Smith western badventure that is neither really as terrible as many would have you think nor as cool as it should have been. I agree that casting Will Smith was the first mistake and giving it to Sonnenfeld was the second. I'm old enough to remember the original show, and it had a lot of humor, but Trey is right that it didn't come from Robert Conrad; it came from the darkly humorous situations. There was little slapstick in the show, but the movie is full of it. The comparison to Star Trek TOS was really enlightening; I always wondered why Gordon reminded me of McCoy (not to mention why the heroes were called James T Kirk and James T West). Is Robert Conrad a black guy?! O tempora! O mores! The great thing about Conrad was that he had a sense of humor but not a sense of self-awareness; Will Smith is all about ironic distance; a better recast might have been Val Kilmer, but Kilmer might not bring the Conrad/Connery/Ford/Willis I'm-tough-but-oh-shit flavor (which Smith *can* do when asked). However, Jon Peters's notes on Superman were crazy. You can't take away the main characteristics of a well-known character without giving the writer an overall vision of what the screenplay should be. Besides, whatever you may think about Smallville, it ain't Superman and it ain't cinematic. Musetta Vander (Munitia) isn't Melinda Clarke (Nandi from Firefly "Heart of Gold"), but you might recognize her as the lead Siren from O Brother Where Art Thou or possibly as the lead in Mansquito. That's where I know her from. She also gave Harry Kim VD in ST: Voyager. Ted Levine is probably best known now for playing the police captain in Monk. Neither Georgia nor Jordan are in Africa.

Comment on Bad Boys II by Zarban

Zarban — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:19:21 +0000

Funnier and more informative than other Podblasts I’ve listened to. Good stuff!

Comment on Independence Day (theatrical cut) by Zarban

Zarban — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:01:51 +0000

Good nerdy exploration of this bubble-gum blockbuster. They’re watching the theatrical version; not the special edition director’s cut.

Comment on Wild Wild West by Zarban

Zarban — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:23:28 +0000

Very good effort from the RCUK guys. Good bits of humor here and there, including a hilarious (to an American) argument over whether or not Washington is a state.