[barmar]

mike777, on 2013-October-07, 00:05, said:

3 characters...they float in space....boring....

Anyone remember the indy film "Open Water"? About a couple who go scuba diving and get left behind by the boat, and just float there for a day, getting nipped at by sharks.

[gwnn]

barmar, on 2013-October-07, 09:52, said:

Anyone remember the indy film "Open Water"? About a couple who go scuba diving and get left behind by the boat, and just float there for a day, getting nipped at by sharks.

Yes, good film, I definitely liked it, but I could see why some people would consider it boring. I have no idea why anyone would find Gravity boring. Maybe that should be the next 'psychopath test.'

[mike777]

barmar, on 2013-October-07, 09:52, said:

Anyone remember the indy film "Open Water"? About a couple who go scuba diving and get left behind by the boat, and just float there for a day, getting nipped at by sharks.

open water ok...I hope gravity is much better....

[billw55]

mike777, on 2013-October-07, 00:05, said:

3 characters...they float in space....boring....

2001 Space Odyssey ... few characters, they float in space, barely even talk ... boring?

[y66]

The Return by Andrey Zvyaginstev. Reviewed here. Hard to believe this was this director's first film. Wow.

[kenberg]

We recently saw Philomena which I liked very much. Firstly I just found it interesting. But there is also an undelying moral tension to it, and my views are closer to Philamena's than to the journalist's although I really see it differently from either of them. At any rate, I recommend it.

[mike777]

just saw Nebraska...ok



Dallas Clb was pretty good...really good.

[hrothgar]

So, WRT to that whole Hobbit thing, here's a few thoughts...

1. Desolation of Smaug was MUCH better than An Unexpected Journey. There weren't any scenes that roused my attention quite as much as the dinner scene with the dwarves. However, as a whole the movie did a much better job keeping my interest.

2. Still way to many gratuitous chase scenes. Looks like Disney now has a flume to go along with its roller coaster. I blame the foreign movie market for dumbing down mass market cinema.

3. Favorite part of the movie was seeing Smaug's face when he suddenly saw a giant golden dwarf taller than he was. The look of shock and avarice was priceless.

4. Really disliked the re-interpretation of the black arrow and the back story with Bard the bowman

5. I swear that whomever said "open the gates" in Laketown sounded exactly like Baldrick. I can't find any record that Tony Robinson is in the movie, but I like to believe that he is.

6. Did anyone else catch the Thranduil's comment about elves and white gems? They're gearing up to do the Silmarillion...

7. I still hate fight scenes involving elves. I just want to see an Orc shield bash one of them in the face.

8. I want to live at Bjeorn's place

[billw55]

hrothgar, on 2013-December-16, 07:34, said:

2. Still way to many gratuitous chase scenes. Looks like Disney now has a flume to go along with its roller coaster. I blame the foreign movie market for dumbing down mass market cinema.

Agree that dumbing down has happened, just not sure we needed foreign markets. US audiences are mostly teens and they aren't particularly discriminating either.

[hrothgar]

billw55, on 2013-December-16, 08:15, said:

Agree that dumbing down has happened, just not sure we needed foreign markets. US audiences are mostly teens and they aren't particularly discriminating either.

I've seen a fair number of interviews that (essentially) state

Foreign distribution rights make up a much more significant portion of a film's gross
Dialogue needs to be translated. Chase scenes are universal

[1eyedjack]

hrothgar, on 2013-December-16, 07:34, said:

So, WRT to that whole Hobbit thing, here's a few thoughts...

Basically, for a book the length of The Hobbit, spinning it out into 3 films was bound to result in most of the criticisms that you mentioned.

[1eyedjack]

Just saw "The American". If you have not already seen it, don't bother. Absolutely dire.

Reasonably atmospheric cinematography, but there is only so much that you can do to patch over a dismally flawed plot.

[y66]

Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Documentary about a legendary chef. Recommended for sushi lovers.

[dustinst22]

barmar, on 2013-October-07, 09:52, said:

Anyone remember the indy film "Open Water"? About a couple who go scuba diving and get left behind by the boat, and just float there for a day, getting nipped at by sharks.

Yeah I thought it was disappointing.

Just saw The Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese flick). That was entertaining. Had a Boiler Room feel to it.

[mike777]

I commented on JIro a year ago....great movie.


wolf of wall street got panned...I thought it was a bit better but far far too long and repetitive.

fwiw fast and furious was my favorite movie of the year it had amazing scenes...fun and fast.

American Hustle made my personal top ten but somehow it felt cold and lacking.

I put gravity...MUD and his aids movie, dallas club, above in my top ten.
Clearly this was the year of Mat!

[dustinst22]

mike777, on 2014-January-02, 23:50, said:

I commented on JIro a year ago....great movie.


wolf of wall street got panned...I thought it was a bit better but far far too long and repetitive.

75% on RT for Wolf of Wall Street, that's very solid reviews. That movie was so over the top unadulterated debauchery and greed, really entertaining.

"The name of the game, move the money from your client’s pocket into your pocket." "But if you can make your clients money at the same time it’s advantageous to everyone, corrent?" "No"

I was actually pretty disappointed with American Hustle. Was expecting much more with the solid reviews.

Gravity was good, but everyone was overhyping it so much I was also somewhat disappointed.

[mikeh]

hrothgar, on 2013-December-16, 07:34, said:

So, WRT to that whole Hobbit thing, here's a few thoughts...

1. Desolation of Smaug was MUCH better than An Unexpected Journey. There weren't any scenes that roused my attention quite as much as the dinner scene with the dwarves. However, as a whole the movie did a much better job keeping my interest.

2. Still way to many gratuitous chase scenes. Looks like Disney now has a flume to go along with its roller coaster. I blame the foreign movie market for dumbing down mass market cinema.

3. Favorite part of the movie was seeing Smaug's face when he suddenly saw a giant golden dwarf taller than he was. The look of shock and avarice was priceless.

4. Really disliked the re-interpretation of the black arrow and the back story with Bard the bowman

5. I swear that whomever said "open the gates" in Laketown sounded exactly like Baldrick. I can't find any record that Tony Robinson is in the movie, but I like to believe that he is.

6. Did anyone else catch the Thranduil's comment about elves and white gems? They're gearing up to do the Silmarillion...

7. I still hate fight scenes involving elves. I just want to see an Orc shield bash one of them in the face.

8. I want to live at Bjeorn's place

I saw the movie last weekend in Imax 3D, only the 2nd 3D movie I've seen (the other was Gravity).

I was bored silly. The fight scenes were too much the same and far too predictable, as was the plot.

And I could probably give you an almost scene-for-scene outline of the 3rd movie. We all know, for example, that Bard will use the black arrow to kill the dragon, but only at the last moment, after a desperate chase scene that allows him to recover the (almost stolen or lost but miraculously retrieved) black arrow.

We can predict that the wizard, whose name I either didn't catch or promptly forgot, who was told by gandulf NOT to come to his rescue will come to his rescue.

Countless orcs will demonstrate an utter lack of competence at fighting beings significantly smaller than themselves and will die by the score or even the hundreds while inflicting at most superficial injuries.

Oaksword (if that is the name of the king of the dwarves....it was difficult to remember these hackneyed characters) will have some ethical issues but will ultimately do the right thing, just as he did in going into the lower levels of the city under the mountain.

I liked the Lord of the Rings, but Jackson has got himself stuck in a rut and this is just too much the same, and a movie in which cgi has overwhelmed what little plot justification there was for making the movie(s) in the first place. I don't think I will go see the final, not-likely-to-be-riveting episode.

oh...I had some vague hopes for real comic relief when I recognized Stephen Fry as the ruler of Bard's city, but he really had nothing with which to work. Also, I think, while I admire Fry a great deal, he isn't an actor capable of being a main character so I probably shouldn't have got my hopes up when he appeared on the screen.

[gwnn]

I saw a few 2013 films in the last few days (I'm trying to catch up with Berardinelli's top 10: http://www.reelviews...eelthoughts.php).

I liked Drinking Buddies (probably nobody knows this one), but maybe because I'm fond of all of its main actors and clearly they did a solid job.

Closed Circuit was interesting as a slightly different take on the good ol' conspiracy film.

Finally, today while travelling I saw Prisoners and The Spectacular Now, luckily in that order. Prisoners more or less achieves what it sets out to do flawlessly while I liked and recognised all the characters from The Spectacular Now but maybe some parts of the final third could have been handled differently. Nevertheless it's nice to see a very familiar premise in both films executed by the book but with great effect.

[blackshoe]

mikeh, on 2014-January-03, 13:31, said:

We can predict that the wizard, whose name I either didn't catch or promptly forgot, who was told by gandulf NOT to come to his rescue will come to his rescue.

Countless orcs will demonstrate an utter lack of competence at fighting beings significantly smaller than themselves and will die by the score or even the hundreds while inflicting at most superficial injuries.

Oaksword (if that is the name of the king of the dwarves....it was difficult to remember these hackneyed characters) will have some ethical issues but will ultimately do the right thing, just as he did in going into the lower levels of the city under the mountain.

The wizard is Radagast the Brown. The dwarf's name is Thorin Oakenshield, so named because he once use the branch of an oak tree as a shield during an orc attack.

Bad guys in stories are almost always lousy fighters - although perhaps not as lousy as these orcs.

The Lord of the Rings was Tolkien's magnum opus. He put a lot of work into it, and it shows. The Hobbit was just a tale he wrote for his children, long before LOTR. I put the decision to expand a one book novel into three movies down to pure greed - it makes no sense otherwise. Also, neither Legolas nor Tauriel appeared in the novel, although Legolas was of of course, one of the Fellowship of the Ring in LOTR.

I was as glad to see Beorn though as I was disappointed in LOTR not to see Tom Bombadil and Goldberry.

[blackshoe]

My last two movies: "Catching Fire" and "The Hobbit". I enjoyed both, although I agree to some extent with mikeh's assessment of the latter. It wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. "Catching Fire" was merely okay, although the look on Katniss Everdeen's face in the last scene, when she finally understands that there is the possibility of getting out from under the thumb of the capital, is priceless. President Snow has no idea how much trouble he's in. Still to come: "47 Ronin", for the 3D fx if nothing else. :-)