'Ted' coming this summer. (2012)*

Saw the movie today and been laughing hard for most of its 107 minutes...several great moments: the parody of a parody (Airplane- Saturday Night Fever), the "Cheers" special edition DVDs interview, the "Vic Armstrong/Indy" car chase, the lotion scene at the market, Norah, Flash!...too many to mention. The fight scene at the hotel was my fave from a tech point of view: great editing job although I feel they "borrowed" a little too much of it from one of the Bourne flicks. And, wait! Do hotels still have CRT TVs?

Also, I felt personally mocked since I have both the Knight Rider and Emperor's March ringtones!

All in all, great fun. I can enjoy bad taste jokes but imho the movie would have been equally good without the 9/11 and Lance Armstrong ones.

 

Yes - I stay at Red Roof Inns all the time, and most still have CRTs...

 

wow. Mine comes handy when I'm playing some old PS2 games but the last time I saw a CRT TV at a hotel was about 5 years ago

 

This is a Seth MacFarlane production; I can guarantee you that such a thing was entirely by design.

 

Director Paul Greengrass is known for that ultra-fast-paced, jerky-camera style, and has used it for more than a decade. It's not just confined to the Bourne movies. Pretty much everybody does that nowadays.

What's interesting to me about the Ted fight scene is that it's done so straight: no music, no jokes, and it's actually pretty grim (once you get past the ridiculous concept). The visual effects people said this was the hardest sequence in the film, partly because they had to give the animated character a sense of weight, which helped sell the fight. (Though as I've said, I still kinda doubt that a 10-lb. plush toy could deck a 180-pound man. And yet... I want to believe.)

 

You clearly stay in a much classier sort of lodging than I!

 

Greengrass takes it to an extreme, though. I won't see Greengrass movies on the big screen because they always give me motion sickness.

The same happens with "found footage" flicks, but Greengrass is the only one who makes "standard narrative films" that consistently use so much Shakycam that I can't watch them...

 

Yeah, you're not the first person who's slammed Greengrass for that. I think he's a pretty well thought-out guy, but I don't dispute that there's a limit to how fast you can cut and how much the camera can shake. The danger in a fight scene is that the audience starts losing track of who's punching who, who got shot, who escaped, and so on. Beyond a certain point, you get dizzy. Directors continue to push this limit, and unfortunately, audiences quickly develop a tolerance for it, to the point where timing and pacing seems to get faster every year.

Don't get me stahted on the Found Footage deal.

 

I'm not necessarily slamming Greengrass - hey, a lot of people love his Bourne flicks, and "United 93" was quite good. I just literally can't watch his movies without getting physically ill!

And I like some of the found footage flicks - "Cloverfield" was a lot of fun - but they ALWAYS make me nauseous.

"Cloverfield" was the first time I ever saw disclaimers on theater doors warning people that the film's visual style might inspire motion sickness...

 

I saw the third Bourne movie in the theater and I couldn't tell what the hell was going on in any of the action scenes, completely ruined the film for me. In addition I left the theater with a horrible migraine. That crap "style" also ruined most of the action sequences in Quantum Of Solace which was mimicking it.

 

To be more specific I was thinking of "The Bourne Ultimatum" also because both fights feature a bathroom and have some similarities in the choreographies but you're (of course) right indeed, furthermore also the "Ultimatum" scene I was referring to has no music; it stops the moment Damon enters the building.
By the way, after seeing the "Ted" fight I'd say an academy award nomination to the visual effects guys for that scene alone shouldn't have been out of place.

And yes, the concept is ridiculous but it works. I'm usually pretty picky about things like these (Vidiot, you talked about it in the past and I agree: how do the cars in Pixar's "Cars" reproduce? Who built the damn cities? Who built the damn everything?!) but there was not a single moment in "Ted" that made me thinking "impossible" or that stopped me from enjoying the film. Someone criticized the fact that Ted hasn't genitalia but he has sex and we see Ted moving and hear the market girl moaning...do women pretend they have an orgasm with plush bears too? Maybe.. but I want to believe that, underneath the plush, Ted has something apparently invisible that grows at the right moment! .

I'll be true, I was expecting a disaster like "Howard the duck" but imho this absurd (in a good way) movie is the most surprising 2012 hit.

I also appreciated the fact that, for the italian version, they kept the actor who dubs the Peter Griffin character to voice Ted... Something you could take for granted but it's not always like that in my country; after all here we have the same guy dubbing Pierce Brosnan, Robert Downey Jr, Russel Crowe, Keanu Reeves, Hugh Grant and occasionally Samuel L. Jackson too

 

oh, I don't think so. It's something that was discussed a lot in italy, despite the crisis you may see a bunch of unemployed people having the latest iPhone. TVs often broadcast specials about the financial crisis and interview people who just lost their jobs or that never had a steady or well paid one...the interviews usually take place into their houses: 99% of them have a brand new LCD TV. Most hotels want to keep a high profile reputation, imho that's why they got rid of working CRT TVs

 

As John from The Movie Blog says, "Shaky Cam is used when a director has no idea how to properly choreograph a fight scene."

I think shaky cam on fight scenes is crap and anyone who uses it except for extremely mildly is an idiot.

 

That also holds true for car chases.

 

Don't you remember that line where he's talking to singer Norah Jones, who remarks, "you did pretty well for a guy with no genitalia," and he answers, "yeah, I've sent a lot of angry letters to Hasbro about that." Great bit.

Yeah, when we first started talking about Ted almost a year ago, even I was very iffy on the idea. Once I saw the trailer, I thought, "either this will be a huge hit or a huge bomb -- no inbetween." I'm as surprised as anybody that it was the former and not the latter, but to me, the reason why is that the movie has a surprising amount of heart, despite being very violent, gross, and over-the-top. I can overlook all the logistical issues -- like why does Ted's voice deepen as he gets older? How does he have a room full of hookers when he makes no money? How does he operate a cellphone when he has no opposable thumb? -- but at some point, you just have to buy into it. One minute into it in the theater, I thought, "holy F -- MacFarlane pulled it off." The audience was screaming from the word go -- and this was a cynical, hardcore Hollywood audience.

 

BTW, there are so many funny lines in this movie, I don't know where to start. But this one is one of my favorites:

No matter how big a splash you make in this world, whether you're Corey Feldman, Frankie Muniz, Justin Bieber or a talking teddy bear... eventually, nobody gives a s#!t.

 

maybe Ted is using...a leg??

Ah, I see now. I usually stay away from threads discussing movies I haven't seen yet, more so now that the spoiler function has been disabled after the conversion to XenForo. I missed out on last year's opinion about it.
Yep, ridiculous from start to finish (how does Ted enjoy coke? how on earth a guy who can wake up everyday with a doll like Mila Kunis in his bed run the risk of losing her to constantly party with a bear? a 35 year old guy??) but MacFarlane fooled me big time..and I also bought into it. A plush toy at a restaurant with a human girlfriend and another couple? Yowza!

 

I was playing Grand Theft Auto age 3/4 and watching South Park uncensored at age 6! So to answer your question as to what kind of parent would take their child to see Ted or watch family guy, an awesome parent! and my parent's are certainly not irresponsible if you gonna try and go at that.

 

Finally saw this on HBO (or Starz, can't remember) a few days ago and thought it was great. Loved all the Flash Gordon stuff, and Giovanni Ribisi was a good creep. His dancing to the Tiffany video was hilarious.

Also really loved the Norah Jones part and Mark singing the worst all time Bond theme song, "All Time High".

 

I honestly didn't catch on it was Giovanni till the credits he did such a good job...

Great seeing Norah also...

 

Some news for "Ted 2". Amanda Seyfried replacing Mila Kunis as the female lead for the sequel. She'll be a different character, they aren't just going to pretend its the same person.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...e-lead-opposite-Mark-Wahlberg-Ted-sequel.html

They're both fine actresses, though I don't think I've seen Amanda do much comedy. Mila was great for the role, even if her character itself was mostly straight and not comedic.

 

That's surprising, it's not unusual for Seth to replace the actor for a character then point it out - Family Guy has joked about the Chabert/Kunis changeover a few times now, even having Lacey play Meg again when Stewie went back in time.

I'm cool with losing Mila though... it felt too much like "Family Guy: The Movie". Seth as a character who sounds like Peter, Alex Borstein, Mila, Mike Henry as the "LOOK WHAT JESUS DID!" guy...

 

I didn't know Lacey Chabert used to do Meg. I thought it was always Mila. Huh.

 

Amanda is an excellent actress she will do the part well.

 

no way IMO to hide him...I recognized him immediately ...he is was outstanding...he really, really played a creep so perfect! I could not stand the voice...and that dance he did was vile! GREAT ACTOR!