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Culturegasm: At the Movies - The Last September to Black November

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    •  
      CommentAuthorMorac
    • CommentTimeDec 17th 2012
     (10823.1)
    RE: The Hobbit

    As a big fan of the book (it was one of my favorites growing up), the movie was wonderful. I loved every minute of it.

    My friends, however, who were less... enthusiastic about the source material as I was, found the movie to be enjoyable but not mind-blowing. So grains of salt all 'round.
  2.  (10823.2)
    @Stoto - I did indeed hear the good Dr mention it and it was that that pushed me on to see it. Though I'm paraphrasing, I think he said it was one of the most perfect scripts in filmmaking history so with that, I had to see it. Good to know the Witterati are here too :)

    Funnily enough, I'm loading the newest podcast onto my phone as I type. After this, I'm off for a walk and a listen.

    Any other Radio Five Live Kermode & Mayo podcast listeners here apart from me & Stoto?
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeDec 17th 2012 edited
     (10823.3)
    Hello. My name is Foamhead. And I am a Trekkie.



    Buggering copyrightists are too quick for me. Try this instead.

    http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrekintodarkness/
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeDec 18th 2012
     (10823.4)
    I saw The Hobbit in HFR 3D last night.

    It was sort of like the very best BBC special that's ever been made. The story was... well... it was The Hobbit, so no surprises there, but it was paced like a TV miniseries and looked like one. I'm not saying that was a bad thing, because it was relaxing to watch. It didn't feel cinematic at all, it felt like it was all right there in front of you, which seemed very odd at first, and then you settle into it. The sets and costumes look like sets and costumes. As if you could glance over the other side of your living room and you'd see the same things, in the same detail.

    And Gollum's right there, in utterly realistic detail. As if he were over the other side of your room. And giant trolls. And eagles. And Rivendell. And it's real. Not just like when Jurassic Park came out and everyone was like 'whoooaaa dinosaurs!' but like... real like your sofa is real, not just 'real for cinema'. You're way over the other side of the uncanny valley and I had to stop and think about what was on the screen as not being real. It plays into your experience of what's real onscreen and not and instead of thinking 'ooh, that looks clever' or admiring the special effects, you've really got to think about what's an effect and what isn't. Or, just stop caring and accept it all. It all looks too real. Even the things that are fake.

    What I was thinking though, was that it's a bit regrettable that Bruce Lee never got filmed in that sort of format.

    But yeah. It's The Hobbit. If you like that sort of thing, you'll like it. HFR 3D is just fucking odd if you think about it too much, but incredibly relaxing to watch if you don't.
    •  
      CommentAuthorjohnjones
    • CommentTimeDec 18th 2012 edited
     (10823.5)
    I saw a trailer for Zach Snyder's Man of Steel. It looked pretty and even with spaceships and explosions there was the lyrical, somewhat emo ballet tune running through the whole thing. I could not help but recall Warren Ellis' take on the opening themes of Doctor Who and Torchwood as I compared and contrasted the Man of Steel music with this:

  6.  (10823.6)
    I kinda hated the trailer for Superman. It looked like a movie that was about anything except what I think of when I think Superman, barring a scene or two of flying.



    While I really enjoyed The Hobbit, I went in more interested in the effect of 48FPS. I've got to say I'm very happy with it, and hope it becomes a standard. The smoother frame rate makes action scenes flow better, and did wonders for camera panning as well.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeDec 18th 2012
     (10823.7)
    I dunno, man. You just can't do Superman as big and pompous and bombastic but containing a bumbling caricature of a Clark Kent anymore. Especially not after Bill's speech. I actually loved Superman Returns as a sort of sequel to Superman II, but can also see why it wasn't well loved.

    But you've got to go with something fairly original for Superman now, even if you think it isn't what it should be.
  8.  (10823.8)
    I'm still extraordinarily annoyed at Jonathan Kent saying 'maybe' when Clark asks if he should've let the busload of kids die in order to hide his abilities in that trailer.
    •  
      CommentAuthorD.J.
    • CommentTimeDec 18th 2012 edited
     (10823.9)
    I'm really hoping that line was just some really bad trailer editing or something, because it makes no goddamn sense.
  10.  (10823.10)
    ^Yeah, let's hope it's some bad editing and not just the bad directing that Zak Snyder is known for. Saying that, Snyder's obviously a comic book fan...I'm pretty torn about this one.

    I'm hoping that because it's produced by Nolan, it's going to be alright.
    • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeDec 19th 2012
     (10823.11)
    Saw Beasts of the Southern Wild. Really beautiful.

    It's not easy to make a movie from the perspective of a six years old, but these guys got it right.

  12.  (10823.12)
    Snyder's obviously a comic book fan...
    He's a comic book fan, but he's a comic book fan who has demonstrated very little understanding of the works he purports to be a fan of in his adaptations of them.

    And I think you're vastly overestimating how involved Nolan has been as a producer.
  13.  (10823.13)
    I've heard so many bad things about the 48FPS 3D, I went and saw The Hobbit in 2D. I liked it on the whole. It was worth seeing, and I'll be seeing the sequels. It does have issues, though.

    It's badly paced... Something that could have been fixed by cutting off half an hour or so of downright fillery material, and moving some of the bits around. In particular, I'd like to have moved
    Radagast's scenes.
    Here they're in the middle of a TON of introductions, and then they give us yet another one, right when we're wanting to actually get into some proper action with the dwarves. It gave me sort of a "why do I care about this?" feeling... Simply because it's placed in the wrong spot.

    See, it's a fun sequence on its own, despite the vast amounts of Uncanny Valley on display. But it would've been FAR better to see it later on, after
    Radagast's hare-sled happens upon the party of dwarves
    . You get a flashback there anyway, so you might as well make it longer, since that'll have perked the audience's curiosity about him and his situation.

    There are bits that serve only to pad the length of the movie, and one sequence in particular is so downright silly, lengthy AND without any effect on anything else in the movie, it almost counts as a shark-jumping moment. I enjoyed the
    rock'em-sock'em-mountain robot sequence
    on its own, but... Come ON, Jackson, the movie's already too long, and I'm verging on thinking that it's a little too fantastic for the movie at that point.

    The movie also suffers seriously from cartoon physics. It's especially bad in the
    goblin fight and the tree-hopping bit
    , where you've got dwarves Super Marioing around and where the enemies seem feather-light except when they're heavy, like a video game without a stable physics engine. A lot of the effects, especially the animals, LOOK cartoony too... Especially the eagles and wargs.

    I saw it in 2D, and I think I'll recommend watching it that way. I wouldn't want to see those effects in 3D-48FPS-vision... They look distracting enough as it is.

    But man, in those moments when it hits all the right notes, it works oh so well. The one bit I really needed them to nail, they nailed so hard. Freaking Gollum. That sequence is funny, tense, incredibly acted, beautiful, and touching.

    And looks-wise, outside of the Narnia-looking CGI animals, the whole movie is freaking beautiful. It's an incredible work of art at its best.

    There's a great a-little-over-two-hours movie hidden in here. As it is, it's just Good. But worth seeing.
    • CommentAuthorkmcleod
    • CommentTimeDec 21st 2012
     (10823.14)
    There will be the people who will stand in line for LES MISERABLES when it opens on Christmas, and there will be people who'll stand in line for DJANGO UNCHAINED when it opens this Christmas. The people in the theater seats gently sobbing or mouthing along with the songs will hear cries of "Kill that muthafucker!" through the wall next to the theater showing DJANGO UNCHAINED . But there have been second option situations, like the time I and friends were in line for THE STING, but when it sold out, we instead stood in line for some film called CHINATOWN. We had no idea how lucky we were about to be. Perhaps if LES MIZ sells out, the crowd will wander to DJANGO ("Oh! the gypsy guitarist? I love biopics!"), or the DJANGO crowd will pick LES MIZ as a fall-back option ("Yo, Wolverine and Catwoman's in this!"). maybe they'll all be as lucky as we were with CHINATOWN, with soccer moms exiting the Cineplex high-five-ing their kids: "Django really took it to The Man! Yeah!", and homies tearfully excusing themselves after the musical to call their mothers.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeDec 25th 2012
     (10823.15)
    •  
      CommentAuthorD.J.
    • CommentTimeDec 25th 2012
     (10823.16)
    So, if for some reason someone was worried Django Unchained might be bad or not worth seeing or something, it's not. It is good and go see it. That is all.
  17.  (10823.17)
    @Wood: BOTSW was my favourite film of 2012. It's utterly brilliant. I'm going to buy a copy as soon as it's possible to do so. It may turn out to be an All Time Fave.
  18.  (10823.18)
    Just saw The Hobbit. It was...O.K.? As curious as I was about the 48 fps, I just saw the regular 2D version. At almost 3 hours, I don't want those glasses on my beak for that long.
  19.  (10823.19)
    Django Unchained was fantastic.

    I'm glad that there was a four way attempt to steal the show.

    Samuel L. Jackson's alternate name for the Black Hercules was probably my favorite single line, though.
  20.  (10823.20)
    Finally saw the 2D version of the Hobbit this week (it wasn't released in Australia until the 26th would you believe?). I thought it was great - with a few reservations...

    Firstly it needed between 20 and 30 minutes of cuts to tighten everything up. I'm the biggest Tolkien fanboy you can imagine, but towards the end even my attention was starting to drift. They could start by eliminating the stone giants sequence which was only a couple of throw away lines in the novel to start with, then continue by chopping down the battle in Goblin Town. Watching the film in 2D made it pretty clear both those sequences existed purely to make everyone drinking the 3D kool-aid go "woah! cool!".

    Secondly there were minor cannon violations all over the place - which didn't bother me because I expected them - but they seriously pissed me off with what they've done with the Witch King of Angmar. No one wants to hear me in full flight Nerd Rage, so I won't continue except to say way to break the background guys!

    Oh, and finally, why did Thorin get Mordor/Nazgul music when he charged Azog in the final battle scene?

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