Coppala's "Little Fat Girl in Ohio That Brings Down the Movie Business and Turns it into Art" is Kung Fury

[Oliver Daniel]

Wow, there are really a lot of negative comments about Kung Fury in this thread. 

Personally, I thought it was absolutely awesome. The style, the one-liners, the creative compositions and the confidence to make something this ridiculous actually good is a winner to me. 

This filmmaker had a lot of fun making this, is clearly very inspired and doesn't care how dumb people think his film is. (Because it's actually very clever).

Maybe I love it because I can relate to it. In uni, I loved watching "so bad they are brilliant" films like Ninja Terminator. So when I see Kung Fury taking that to the level of awesome, I understand it completely. 

[fuzzynormal]

I tried to make a "so-bad-it's-good" movie once. Anyone that dismisses the skill to pull this off on a semi-productive level is just ignorant and disrespectful of the talent needed to accomplish such. 

You may not like Kung Fury director's choices, but it does well to capture an amusing tone. That's part of cinematic storytelling, so I ain't gonna knock it. 

[silvertonesx24]

This film was devoid of any original thought, so I will knock it.

It's Freidberg & Seltzer for hipsters.

[Fatalfury]

Wow, there are really a lot of negative comments about Kung Fury in this thread. 

Personally, I thought it was absolutely awesome. The style, the one-liners, the creative compositions and the confidence to make something this ridiculous actually good is a winner to me. 

This filmmaker had a lot of fun making this, is clearly very inspired and doesn't care how dumb people think his film is. (Because it's actually very clever).

Maybe I love it because I can relate to it. In uni, I loved watching "so bad they are brilliant" films like Ninja Terminator. So when I see Kung Fury taking that to the level of awesome, I understand it completely. 

​I too love watching bad movies that are great fun to behold, but these films are genuinely sincerely bad. It is nearly impossible to make intentionally a good bad film, and for me Kung Fury proves it. As i've said, Kung Fury has it's charm and couple really nice bits, obviously a lot of hard work into it yada yada but in the end it's a five minute viral sketch stretched to half hour feature. Seems that most people love it, and from the trailer and music video i expected to love it too. 

[Axel]

I forgot to confess that I like Kung Fury. Yes, the trailer contains everything in a nutshell. The same could be said of Bond trailers. Really not necessary to roll out this bundle of cliches again to two hour length. It weren't the worst thirty minutes of the day, most of the time I am bored by three minute long clips.

[Eduardo Portas]

Not my personal style, but I respect the creator's vision.I think it fits quite nicely as an artifact of our age.

If future researchers see it as devoid of meaning I wouldn't argue with them.

To put it bluntly, and I'm pulling a Werner here, the form of the film is the actual meaning in itself: 

over-the-top CGI effects, 30-minute duration for the painful attention span of the generation, released on YouTube, ridiculous super hero story, etc

[fuzzynormal]

This film was devoid of any original thought, so I will knock it.

It's Freidberg & Seltzer for hipsters.

I kind of feel it's a put up or shut up kind of thing. It's way too easy to be a critic of something deliberately stupid. 

I get it if you don't like it. It doesn't work for me on some levels, but if you claim to be an Indy filmmaker and rip this a part, then seeing the accomplishments of the one doing the ripping seems like a fair request. 

I mean, it's a labor of love sort of thing, so it deserves a bit of leeway, right?

[hmcindie]

This film was devoid of any original thought, so I will knock it.

​Comments like this just make the poster seem stupid. The idea specifically is to take a bunch of cliches from bad movies and just put them really over-the-top. Saying "no original thought" is just going really retarded. Like maximum level. There are loads of little ideas in that short that are original, even though the general premise is not.

[hmcindie]

 

I mean, it's a labor of love sort of thing, so it deserves a bit of leeway, right?

​​Yeah, you'd think in a forum for indie film making people would learn to criticise other's work properly and enthusiastically. But it seems like these kinds off forums are the worst (the comment section of nofilmschool is even more horrid). We are not in a competition. If we were, Kung Fury already won it anyways.

[Geoff CB]

Personally, I loved it! Not high art, but it's obviously not meant to be. A fun, well made 30-minute tribute to the 80's. Also, there are a ton of passion films like this that drag on way to much, this one was only guilty of that when he's fighting the Nazi footsoldiers.

 

[Jimmy]

I found the film much more enjoyable in that 30 minutes than I did watching Ex Machina last night or Fury Road.  Both budgets were $150 million and $65 million, respectably.

​Actually, Ex Machina was considerably lower budget than you have stated, coming in at around $15m. A big chunk of change, no doubt... But still low budget, for Hollywood.

[silvertonesx24]

​Comments like this just make the poster seem stupid. The idea specifically is to take a bunch of cliches from bad movies and just put them really over-the-top. Saying "no original thought" is just going really retarded. Like maximum level. There are loads of little ideas in that short that are original, even though the general premise is not.

Yeah, so stupid to judge the artistic merits of content on what it contributes in the form of new ideas. Which is absolutely nothing, zero, not at all.

 

So full of original ideas, like, let's blow up cliches over the top, oh wait like every Date/Epic/Disaster Movie? Evil killer video games? Never heard that one before. Sooper evil gas mask Nazis, lifted straight from Sucker Punch? Ultra-violence as comedy, there's another fresh contribution, I mean it's not like Postal has been around forever. The aforementioned Danger 5 knockoffs? Ok fine Kung Fu Hitler was original- what a great contribution deserving of such praise:

"beats pretty much every Hollywood action comedy I've seen in the past 20 years"

"made a better Hollywood movie than Hollywood could make."

David Sandberg = new Mozart

 

I think not.

More like, Beavis & Butthead make a movie. There's your maximum level retard, genius.

 

 

 

[fuzzynormal]

Yeah, so stupid to judge the artistic merits of content on what it contributes in the form of new ideas. Which is absolutely nothing, zero, not at all.

So full of original ideas, like, let's blow up cliches over the top, oh wait like every Date/Epic/Disaster Movie?

Aw, c'mon, man. Did you ever see the movie Airplane?  There's a difference between making a movie that's stupid and making a deliberately stupid movie. 

Its goofy satire. It's not supposed to be original if it's embracing the tropes  it is mocking. 

Airplane was the identical plot and story of a 1960's film. They literally used the same script and wrote jokes on top of it. 

You know, being aggressively critical of something is easy. Ive noticed many people seem to believe it makes them look insightful. I disagree. 

That said, I don't disagree that King Fury misses the mark in a few places. Comedy is hard and for me the timing is a little bit off on a few gags -- I personally like more setup before punchlines, but that's just my personal taste against the impressive scope of the entire production.

Its an indy film!  A group of people outside "the system" made all that happen on their own and it rivals a studio product.  That context is incredible. 

I liked it a lot for what it is and that it exists at all. 

[Ed_David]

Also Austin Powers I is an important comedy in how revitalized the film series it was spoofing - satire is really not easy.

Nor is making a 600k film look better than Ex Machina - a 15 million dollar student film.  

It's not the lenses, camera, bla bla bla - it's vision and talent.

Just like you can become a great athelete wearing old used clothing when you work out.  It's passion and desire, not crazy tech.  Hearing more about how he shot it on the fs700 and the color and grading looks so good, so amazing so different like film - is even futher proof than like the film "Aloha" shot on kodak  film that looked pretty bad.

Again y'all can hate and hate, while some of us create.  It's a lot easier to hate than create.

[Oliver Daniel]

Yeah, so stupid to judge the artistic merits of content on what it contributes in the form of new ideas. Which is absolutely nothing, zero, not at all.

 

So full of original ideas, like, let's blow up cliches over the top, oh wait like every Date/Epic/Disaster Movie? Evil killer video games? Never heard that one before. Sooper evil gas mask Nazis, lifted straight from Sucker Punch? Ultra-violence as comedy, there's another fresh contribution, I mean it's not like Postal has been around forever. The aforementioned Danger 5 knockoffs? Ok fine Kung Fu Hitler was original- what a great contribution deserving of such praise:

"beats pretty much every Hollywood action comedy I've seen in the past 20 years"

"made a better Hollywood movie than Hollywood could make."

David Sandberg = new Mozart

 

I think not.

More like, Beavis & Butthead make a movie. There's your maximum level retard, genius.

 

 

 

​

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I don't think you "get" Kung Fury. To compare it to the Epic/Disaster/Date movies is way off the mark. (profit-only junk). 

Kung Fury is a celebration of 80's action movies, music and video game culture. All blended into one. While it makes a parody of it all - it's not done in a crude and negative way like these Hollywood parodies normally do. The filmmaker clearly loves what inspired the film, and you can tell how much fun he must of had making this film. he put himself into it (literally) and you can tell. There is a lot of heart hidden beneath the layers of composites. 

Maybe my opinion is different than yours as I have the same interests as David Sandberg. I can relate to all the cliches, the over-the-top stunts, the directing style, the one-liner intoxicated script.... all of it. I love it when we can be ridiculous and get away with it. So many filmmakers "play it safe" but this guy just goes for it, all guns blazing, doesn't care what anyone thinks. But unlike Sucker Punch, it's intricately inspired and oozes character. 

While I don't expect everyone to like this film, it's unfortunate to see on a filmmaking forum that some people can't appreciate the skills and effort of the filmmaker - regardless of personal taste. 

[silvertonesx24]

"Dumb" films, now and then, are great for entertainment value. I am a fan of Mike Judge because his work says something. I am talking about those hailing Kung Fury as some kind of beacon for independent filmmakers- even, laughably- as the next Symphony No 40- when it says absolutely nothing new. Not one thing. I don't care what camera shot it on. I don't care if he shot it in his house. I don't care if it was crowdfunded or bankrolled by some real estate greaseball. It adds nothing of value to any conversation at all. Ex Machina at the least contributes to relevant issues- the increasing desire to make tech more human, tech role in society, mass data collection by companies, etc.

And I know it's a subjective argument, but in what world does the overcomposited Kung Fury look better than Ex Machina?

[silvertonesx24]

​

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I don't think you "get" Kung Fury. To compare it to the Epic/Disaster/Date movies is way off the mark. (profit-only junk). 

Kung Fury is a celebration of 80's action movies, music and video game culture. All blended into one. While it makes a parody of it all - it's not done in a crude and negative way like these Hollywood parodies normally do. The filmmaker clearly loves what inspired the film, and you can tell how much fun he must of had making this film. he put himself into it (literally) and you can tell. There is a lot of heart hidden beneath the layers of composites. 

Maybe my opinion is different than yours as I have the same interests as David Sandberg. I can relate to all the cliches, the over-the-top stunts, the directing style, the one-liner intoxicated script.... all of it. I love it when we can be ridiculous and get away with it. So many filmmakers "play it safe" but this guy just goes for it, all guns blazing, doesn't care what anyone thinks. But unlike Sucker Punch, it's intricately inspired and oozes character. 

While I don't expect everyone to like this film, it's unfortunate to see on a filmmaking forum that some people can't appreciate the skills and effort of the filmmaker - regardless of personal taste. 

You and I evaluate art very differently.

I don't care how much fun he had making it. I don't care about his vision, his heart, any of that.

I care about what he has to say. I found absolutely nothing at all.

Mike Judge can take a bunch of dumb ideas and make a true satire. David Sandberg can take dumb ideas and make a VFX show.

[Jimmy]

Calling Ex Machina a student film is a bit OTT.

I thought it was beautiful... Yes, it had some inspiration from Kubrick and others... But which film doesn't take inspiration? There are plenty of beautiful, unique shots in the film.

[Ed_David]

I think the performances and dialogue was written as if it was by a 23 year old boy, not by the "creator" of google - or Elon Musk level of intelligence.

It didn't feel fully realized to me at all.  All was flat and boring, just like the vintage lens choice mixed with the sharpness digital camera on the planet -the sony f65

[Jimmy]

I guess you've not met many young CEOs then