Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The A Team (2010)

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-13-2010, 08:28 PM:

Today at Regal 15 in Eugene, #4, 35mm. No presentation issues, looked and sounded good.

I'm tired of movies that employ this kind of directing and editing where every action sequence is shot mostly in closeup with dozens if not hundreds of quick cuts that give little feel for what's actually going on. It's crap.

Thought I haven't watched an episode of the TV show in a long time (decades?) the major characters depicted here at at least somewhat resemble their namesakes in personality and appearance. Nobody can replace Mr. T though.

The movie made me sleepy, despite all the action and loud noise. I give it ** out of ***** and that's being generous, partly because it was shot anamorphic. At least they made one good production decision.

If your screen crops the sides of the scope image at all, you'll be cutting off titles.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-14-2010, 11:46 AM:

I am probably not going to see this, and just judge it harshly on principle, but I am curious about one thing. Do they actually shoot people? The basis of the show is that they sought to help people while using minimal force, and I fear that any rip off in 2010 means someone has to be shot. Mr. T shares my fear, and gave a statement to that effect as reason that he was displeased that they were making the movie.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-14-2010, 11:43 PM:

Actually I find it a little offensive that Mr. T is trying to take some sort of moral high ground by suggesting the original TV series was more morally positive than this new movie simply because few if any characters got killed in the episodes. It's ridiculous.

I remember the TV series showing lots of gun fire and lots of explosions. Just about every episode had at least a few low angle camera shots looking up at stunt men/bad guys being launched through the air by explosions blowing up behind them. They would go flying over the camera, stunned but still alive. Maybe there would be a big shootout with little if any body count. That sort of thing is very implausible.

The problem that I have with the original A Team TV series is it did a lot to make violence look like a bunch of cartoon fun. In real life if a grenade or a few sticks of dynamite explodes behind someone that person is probably going to be badly wounded and permanently disfigured if not just plain killed. Spray an area with a bunch of automatic weapons fire and chances will be good someone will get hit even if it was unintentional.

This doesn't let the new, big screen version of The A-Team off the hook for its violence. I just don't see the original TV series as having any sort of superior moral standing.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-15-2010, 10:50 AM:

It was wildly implausible, but as it came out before I was born, I didn't get into it until middle school, and so realized that it was implausible. The thing is that they usually escalated from mere trickery, and only shot wildly around the bad guys once trickery failed, and I think that is a good lesson for all of us: don't shoot at people until deceit, extortion, and threats fail.

In all seriousness, I am familiar with some of the research on desensitization through exposure to violent imagery, and even compared to its contemporary media in the '80s, the A Team was positively benign. In his seminal work on the subject of the psychology of killing, astutely titled On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman posits that a combination of strong violent imagery and positive external stimuli contribute to create a psychological and physiological correlation between violence and good feelings. Compare sitting on your couch eating potato chips watching George Peppard pepper the ground at some random bad guys feet with small arms fire to sitting in a dark theater eating delicious Milk Duds while Jason is hacking teenagers to death with a machete and your date is cringing into your arms. The former is a fairly neutral experience, while the latter is a strongly positive, endorphin-laden experience, which happens to take place while someone is apparently being murdered in front of you.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-15-2010, 01:58 PM:

Time to ban Milk Duds [evil]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-15-2010, 06:40 PM:

quote: Galen Murphy-Fahlgren
The thing is that they usually escalated from mere trickery, and only shot wildly around the bad guys once trickery failed, and I think that is a good lesson for all of us: don't shoot at people until deceit, extortion, and threats fail.

The mere act of firing a gun wildly around is dangerous. In real life the shooter might not be directly aiming at the bad guy, but all those bullets are going to hit something or maybe even someone. Ricochets and other unpredictable things can happen. It's best to fire a gun only when it has to be fired at a specific target. Even in combat suppressive fire is usually laid down in a specific direction so when other troops have to move they at least know where not to move. If the suppressive fire is fanned wildly the risk is increased of hitting someone other than the enemy.

Filmmakers usually take a lot of precautions on set with guns. They typically use blank ammo with crimped tips (the bullet's wadding is less likely to be fired out of the gun barrel). Lots of planning goes into stunts that involve explosive charges. The stuntman has to know where/when the charge will be ignited and time his leap or fall accordingly.

The TV series version of The A-Team certainly was not a bloody show and it is very mild compared to the violence shown on network television today. I still believe many of the gunfire and explosion sight gags the show depicted week after week we're arguably reckless because the bad guys were usually just stunned and not badly hurt. It's about as plausible as Wile E. Coyote being able to shake off being hit by an anvil dropped from a cliff.

Posted by Galen Murphy-Fahlgren (Member # 4535) on 06-15-2010, 10:04 PM:

I agree with you on all those counts. But, the responsibility of owning and using a firearm is on the owner of the firearm. If you know you are too stupid to separate the A Team from reality, you should know you are too stupid to have a gun. Parents are responsible for teaching their offspring about gun safety, at least the basics like not touching it and finding a trusted adult. My parents never had guns when we were growing up, but I still managed to know about gun safety, including safe shooting backstops, and I didn't fire anything bigger than a single shot .22LR at Boy Scout camp until I was 20. Basically, if children are learning about guns from TV and not using common sense, they are screwed, and so is anyone near them. Also, if kids are getting their hands on Class III weapons like the A Team always seemed to have, there is a problem there, too, no matter how you or I may feel about the NFA.

Posted by Todd Cornwall (Member # 2205) on 06-18-2010, 12:05 AM:

The movie was just Ok. I didn't expect much, and it delivered.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 06-18-2010, 06:32 AM:

I went in with very low expectations and I got more then I asked for. "Howling Mad" Murdock was great, Copley was great in the role and I feel stole the whole movie. Anybody who trys to judge this movie on morality or anything even close needs to really look at how dumb your being. This movie was made for one thing and one thing only, to present mindless fun to the masses. Its not trying to push a point down our throats. Its got a plot that is about as thick as an original epsiode. Mr. T is complaining because he pushed really hard a couple years ago to be cast as B.A. and no one else. He felt it was his role and nobody should be allowed to be that character. Really kinda sad. I enjoyed this, have seen it twice now as some friends wanted to see it this week. Its nothing more then pure cheese fun.

3/5 [thumbsup]

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 06-18-2010, 01:35 PM:

I thought it was great! Irrespective of Mr. T's comments, or some of the banter on this thread, for me, it kept the spirit of the series, which I loved growing up. I also found it interesting that rather than doing a pre-title sequence & then doing the whole title spiel, the opening credits just slowly continued on until about halfway through reel 2 when the title "The A-Team" finally came on screen. For some reason that tickled my fancy. As did the movie in toto.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 06-21-2010, 10:31 PM:

I thought the movie was highly fun, but not great (like some of my friends have overstated) but on the large Uptown Theater screen here in Washington DC, the visuals and sound were akin to sonic whiplash - which I consider a good time. The acting was inconsistent, but the action set pieces were goofy and had intensity (next time I wont sit too close to the screen [Razz]

)

Posted by Joseph L. Kleiman (Member # 3097) on 07-03-2010, 09:02 AM:

Viewed 6/2 Auditorium 4 at UA Arden Fair 6, Sacramento (the town where Joe Carnahan got his start)

After reading poor reviews on Film-Tech about Last Airbender, decided to see this instead. FirstLook looked horrible. They need to fix the contrast on that digital projector. Movie was on glorious 35mm film, which would have been fantastic if not for the scratches that appeared throughout the first third of the film and the intermittent sound that accompanied it. This print is certainly scheduled for the dollar cinema. Question for Regal: if you have a cineplex with multiple Real D systems, why are you still using film projectors in some of the auditoriums, especially with such poor execution of the prints?

As for the film, when I saw The Losers, I was pretty sure I had just seen The A-Team. Now after seeing The A-Team, I'm pretty sure I've just seen The Losers with a bigger effects budget. The films are virtually the same - they both feature hot chicks that may or may not be on their side, the smarmy guy is played by the star of the moment who has or who will win some sort of ShoWest award, and they both start south of the border and end at the Port of Los Angeles.

As for Joe Carnahan, he has a thing for helicopter chases.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 07-03-2010, 05:45 PM:

quote: Joseph L. Kleiman
Question for Regal: if you have a cineplex with multiple Real D systems, why are you still using film projectors in some of the auditoriums, especially with such poor execution of the prints?

Digital projectors are expensive? The location in question hired idiots and Regal itself hardly cares? [Wink]