A consistent theme I see in Chinese QC'ed construction/manufacturing is the impetus to remove most of the safety/service factor from the design. Things they make are frequently "just good enough" to nominally "work", but they fail very quickly under stress in comparison to comparable goods from elsewhere. In the manufacturing industry I'm in, every time someone tries to source something from China (without setting up a QC operation over there) it blows up in their face because the goods either end up not meeting the performance specs or don't last through the warranty.
Here's a good case study from about 10 years ago on the construction side. Nominally reinforced hollow pile foundation on marginal soil. Excavated on one side of the building for a garage, piled the dirt on the other side. Then it rained and the piles snapped like twigs. All to save maybe $50k of additional concrete and steel on a ~$10M+ building.
Everybody has their share of fuck ups like the FIU bridge, etc.; but I wonder if the Chinese have been building trillions of dollars of "hollowed out" infrastructure that is going to crumble fast. Over 10,000 students died in the earthquake about 10 years ago due to shoddily built schools. Fucking heartbreaking for a lot of good people.
If you appreciate the British humor mixed in the campy-ness isn’t so grating.
For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy are great Bond flicks. His next tier would be The Spy Who Loved Me, The Man With The Golden Gun, and Live and Let Die. Moonraker and A View to a Kill have probably aged the worst.
Saturday Night Fever, which has gotten a lot more social references than it should over the years. I can’t even imagine the “WTF?” expressions on kids faces if they saw it today.
I’m a James Bond fan, and I liked Pierce Brosnan in the role at first, but by Die Another Day, I couldn’t stand the franchise anymore, it had become so campy while still taking itself seriously, and I think his string of Bond films is aging badly. The Daniel Craig films were much better but overcorrected and got a little too noir, especially Quantum of Solace.
So you enjoy all the screen time the film dedicates to Wyatt Earp's love life? They make his wife ridiculously two dimensional to justify the affair with Delany's character, the hollowest in the film ("I want one"), escorted by the very awkward/overdone Billy Zane character. It would be so much better without all that shit. To me its a mash-up of a real western (the scenes with Doc, Johnny Ringo, and the Earps) and something like Mean Girls.
I'm a James Cameron fan. The concept, script, direction, and noir elements of The Terminator were great, Cameron was just way ahead of his time and didn't have the tech for modern effects. Also, it is Arnold's most iconic role, with dialogue perfectly suiting him, and some unforgettable scenes. The noir feel of The Terminator make it a more rewatchable movie to me than T2, where the noir elements were swapped for better effects.
While we're slaughtering sacred cows, I'm just going to say that Val Kilmer is the only thing that saves Tombstone. Dana Delany is terrible in her role and her scenes with Kurt Russel are unwatchable, and really fuck up his role as well IMO.
I nominate Roman Holiday. Its a nice little flick, but 10 Oscar nominations and 3 wins? WTF? It's a Wonderful Life is a timeless classic from several years before that only garnered 5 nominations / no wins.
Additionally: Donna Reed >> Audrey Hepburn
I would say Top Gun may be the epitome of “smash hit bad movie that doesn’t hold up at all”.
I love Crocodile Dundee, the juxtaposition of Mic from the outback and 80’s New York is great, and it’s got the lighthearted Aussie vibe of not taking itself too seriously that keeps it watchable.
I'm on the complete other side of this argument. The score and voiceover make Platoon and are the parts that hold up and are still relevant (This nation is still at war with itself, and the Barnes and Elias characters are just as relevant today as ever). The war scenes are bad and don't hold up at all.
Blackhawk Down was a fantastic war movie that I thought did an admirable job illustrating the chain-of-command inefficiency that was noted in the book as being a significant factor in the events, along with actual heroic actions by some MOH recipients and general badasses that made a difference. Also, I thought it did a better job re-creating Special Forces missions than any other movie before it. The weakest parts that are grating/don't hold up are Josh Hartnett, Jason Isaacs, the contrived comedic relief with McGregor and Hardy, etc., which are a small part of the film, but they do date it somewhat. If the script would have gone totally hardcore war movie without the few comedic relief scenes/lines and trimmed down the Josh Hartnett storyline, it would feel less dated, but it would have probably been a little more dark/depressing/realistic that what was considered optimal for commercial viability at the time.
I really enjoy this series. I went back and started from the beginning before starting season 4. I'm appreciating little details I missed/don't remember from watching the first time.
I hit my steel from 550 today with the 300WM, it’s just to the left of the galvanized feeder. The best part was I setup some binos on a tripod so my wife could watch/spot and she was nice enough to refrain from knocking it over and breaking them. I wish I could build another setup further back but I’m going to lose LOS pretty quickly due to topography. I might be able to get to 600 yards. I’m looking forward to going to a 1000 yard range. Also got some practice with the 375 off of shooting sticks, and broke in the new cans as well. It was a good day. Hopefully I can get my reloading operation going in the next few weeks, get my 375 load worked up and then get my ballistic turret doped and get consistent out to 400 with it.