you really should see 500dos. Don't listen to yosh, he's a hater.

it truly is remarkable to see hurt locker and D9 on the same list as Gamer and GI Joe.

Trixster won't like it very much, IMO.

You didn't like Gamer?

It's too bad everyone is writing Gamer off. I blame the marketing, which sells it as a simple action movie rather than a deconstruction of them. Where District 9 chickened out by making the apartheid allegory super obvious (and dumbing down the last act,) Gamer is full of brave new ideas, shots you've never seen before, and it never pulls its punches.

Really John, you should give it a try! It'll certainly be more provocative than Sorority Row.

I have not seen gamer, and although I'm relatively sure I would loathe it, that was not my point.

I was simply pointing out two of those are very serious, intellectual, well thought out movies, and the other two are mindless, very stupid action.
I am stating this partially from what I've been told and read since I haven't seen gamer or Hurt Locker.

Translation: I am simply pointing out that two of those have over 90% on RottenTomatoes, and the other two are rotten even when their score is combined.

All four movies have incredible but totally unrealistic action scenes. They all boast ingenious concepts, but every film's plot inevitably buckles under scrutiny. The only discrepancy I see between one pair and the other is that The Hurt Locker and District 9 take themselves very seriously, and GI Joe and Gamer do not.

It's a shame really.

Savage had seemed like he was making a conscious effort towards developing an independent personal opinion about film throughout his posts on KJ this year. Unfortunately, he now seems to have slipped back to the masses default position of regurgitating popular/corporate hype...

Savage, this

And please watch this

I don't think that is necessarily true, I don't always agree with people, I maintain my mad love for Confessions of a shopaholicc, I just think there are some movies that are intelligent and well made, and some that are not.
District 9 is the former, GI Joe is the latter.

You might make an argument about the intelligence of GI Joe, but saying it was not well made is much less defensible. It had some of the best directed action scenes of the year, and a complex and exciting story.

What's more, I give GI Joe props for being the most unapologetic blockbuster of the year. Sometimes it's nice to have a stupid summer movie embrace its own irrelevance and go into truly untouched grounds of impossibility. Too many big, dumb movies treat their subject matter with utter solemnity, as if the filmmakers were the only ones not in on the joke.

not sure what you meant by this. Were you defending me in that I don't always agree with RT?

I felt the transitions were weak, the construction of the story flawed, the flashbacks poorly shown, the revelations completely unsurprising, and everything to be regurgitated without any sense of originality, except for the fact that it was more fun and over the top than most films such as this.
In other words, poorly constructed.

This is just my opinion, obviously you and moviedude disagree with me, which is perfectly fine, I'm just stating my honest critique.

I approve!

At least you saw GI Joe...