Captain America: The Winter Soldier*

KGB was similar to our CIA, right? Russia must still have some type of intelligence gathering agency, couldn't she have worked for that agency?

 

They explicitly say "KGB."

 

Yeah, but wouldn't you use KGB if you were writing the thing. I mean it is well known and wouldn't require a lot of explanation.

 

I agree, and heck, it's been YEARS since there was an actual S.H.I.E.L.D. agency in the USA too! (sarcasm not meant for you Dr. Pepper!). I think this one is being WAY over thought.

 

Just got back. A very fast 2.5 hours. Very enjoyable. I liked it.

 

Which would mean that Russia would have both an explicit foreign espionage service (the SVR) and a covert one continuing on from the old agency, which seems unnecessarily redundant. But maybe that is its genius. Anyway, I hope a critical mass of fanboys take note of this "error", as I'd be interested to see what sort of explanation the Marvel folks come up with!

 

Remember this exchange in The Avengers:

Bruce Banner: And your actress buddy, is she a spy too? Do they start that young?

Natasha Romanoff: I did.

 

Good catch!

 

But how old were they talking about in that scene - preschool/preadolescent age?

 

The girl in Kickass was 11.

Russia still has the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, which for all practical purposes is the KGB, just reincarnated under another name in 1991. If she had said that, 99% of the audience would've gone "huh?" But "the KGB" we all recognize.

 

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Sorry to leave the intriguing KGB talk, but there is a pretty nice article in EW .

My farorite quote from the article: Johansson says her most odd and uncomfortable day on the movie was the time she was “riding Sebastian Stan like a mechanical bull.” “I felt so bad for him — and me! They hoisted me up on poor Sebastian’s shoulders and I was holding on with my legs wrapped around. It was horrible!” Or, as Evans calls out after overhearing her answer: “Sebastian’s best day at work!”

I remember thinking wow Black Widow's crotch to Winter Soldier's face, wonder how effective that would be.

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Very nice review by Hollywood comedy writer Ken Levine on the movie:

http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2014/04/captain-america-winter-soldier-my-review.html

I think he nailed exactly how the movie was funny where it needed to be, serious where it needed to be, exciting when it needed to be, and yet always just on this side of believability. And he has a very good theory on how Warner Bros. is screwing up the DC Comics movies by making them too serious ("why so serious?"), and why Marvel is doing them right by keeping a lighter touch. I couldn't agree more with Ken.

 

Marvel movies are funny and fun. The Superman movies of the past were self parody, and that is not as good because it insults the fanboy audience too much.

 

Naw, everybody loved the 1978 Superman movie. It's the crap that followed that was not so good.

I think the balance between drama, comedy, snappy one-liners, action, story, and character development in movies like Avengers, Iron Man, and Captain America are just right. I'm not as happy with the Spiderman movies, but they're decent. The first couple of X-Men movies were terrific.

 

Yes, the first couple Superman films had a fairly good balance, but after that self parody disasters! Still haven't lived down taking my friends to Superman III! Then I went to the other extreme with Citizen Cane, and my friends haven't let me pick a movie in 30 years!

 

Another observation: hmmm, I wonder if the movie was partially subsidized by GM/Chevy?

 

Every movie/TV show has tons of product placements, the bigger the film the more companies trip over themselves trying to get their particular brand featured.

 

Absolutely - but here, I thought it was interesting that the car placements were more blatant than the usual Apple/Sony laptop placements.

 

It's funny, I usually notice that type of stuff, but for whatever reason I didn't catch the vehicle product placement in this film.

 

Wait - your friends are mad that you took them to see "Citizen Kane"?

 

Yes, I was trying to make up for the Superman III fiasco, but they didn't like Orson's masterpiece either.

 

You need better friends.

 

They are great friends, but they wouldn't know a great film from... Well Superman III, literally!

 

Superman III was so bad, the audience I was with wanted to burn down the theater. And Superman IV was so bad, I wanted to drive over to the lab and burn up the negative so that future audiences would be spared the experience. Horrible, horrible, horrible movies.

The Superman films are classic examples of what can go terribly wrong with a Hollywood movie franchise when the wrong people are put in charge. Inferior people should not be employed.

BTW, Winter Soldier has made $681M to date and is still in theaters, which is pretty phenomenal. I'll be very interested to see how X-Men: Days of Future Past does.

 

Agreed. I'm one of those who enjoyed Superman 2 more than the first installment but Superman 3 and Superman IV are horrible. Actually, Superman IV may be the worst superhero movie ever. "Green Lantern" comes close though.

I would like to see "Captain America :Winter Soldier" on the big screen one more time, but it's gone from italian theaters now.
Looking forward to the new "X-Men" flick too; imho X-2 was exceptional and one of the most accomplished movies of the genre. Hopefully, the new one won't disappoint.