What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

But I most certainly don't take The Hobbit seriously - as I consider it mostly a bad joke :)

Ouch its that bad ? you are going to scare me off completely I think. Enjoying a bit of camp is one thing getting offended on one's childhood favorite books quite another...
 
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Objectively speaking it's not that bad no. I just have a thing for Tolkien and an anti-thing for opportunistic exploitation of his material.

It's probably a 5/10 movie overall.
 
Well I guess I can handle that when I am in the right mood and have the time to burn.

It is not that viewing it will diminish my fond memories (and eventual reread) of the book.
(Just so long as the "creator" makes the minimum amount of money possible out of me ;) )

But I most definitely would not have time to spare to it if the movie was not at least "viewable"...
 
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I saw Frozen yesterday with kiddo, and I must say I really liked it.
I liked it a lot better than Code Name: Geronimo (saw the first half last night and then fell asleep). I might have liked Geronimo a lot better had there been as much song and dance and glittery stuff as in Frozen, but the way it was it was just plain boring. Storytelling, characters, everything else: boring. Heck, I liked Outpost better than Geronimo! But then, Outpost had Nazi zombies.
Every movie should have Nazi zombies.
 
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Was bored. Saw the new Hobbit against my better judgement.

I admit that it's been some 20 years since I read the book... but I didn't recognize 95% of the movie material. And it all felt... so... very... longwinded. I practically jumped out of my seat when the credits rolled.
 
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Well, I went to Hobbit 2 yesterday and enjoyed it very much — every single minute of it! Even more so than the first part, actually. I want more big movies to be made in HFR 3D: it looked fantastic. Smaug in particular was incredible.

I know purists will probably either a) not even go to see the movie or b) dismiss it entirely. But please, to anyone who thought Peter Jackson didn't do the Lord of the Rings books justice with the movies: do not watch the Hobbit! It will be better for you and for everyone else who likes them for what they are.

It looks really beautiful. But I find there was way too much action in it, and not enough scenes which convey emotion. LOTR was filled with amazing scenes which got me chocked-up, and The hobbit seems to be turning into an fantasy action-adventure movie, with plenty of fun and amazing moments, but pretty much nothing of substance. At least nothing of substance for the heart.
That's true. LotR worked on more than the action-adventure level, whereas the Hobbit seems a little flat overall. Then again, you could say the same thing about the books, couldn't you?
 
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That's true. LotR worked on more than the action-adventure level, whereas the Hobbit seems a little flat overall. Then again, you could say the same thing about the books, couldn't you?

The Hibbit wasn't flat at all when I read it for the very first time as a young Teenager. Quite the opposite.

That's how tastes change within one's life.
 
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I've just seen Don Jon. I liked it a lot. I like how they managed to make his character really likeable in the end, and they've put Barbara in a bad light as a selfish manipulative woman. Joseph Levitt was really good in it.

And this is why there are so many movies and some people love them and others don't :)

I saw it and thought it was basically worse than the trailer ... thin and flat characters, and mind-numbingly bad plot with stupid 'message', total waste of potentially great Tony Danza character, 'magical thinking' trope from little sister and so on. Worst movie I saw all year.
 
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Saw Out of the Furnace yesterday. I've got an illness such that I will see almost any film dealing with the seedy crime underworld short of it being a straight action movie. More often than not they fall short and leave me feeling cheated. I guess I'm always searching for the next Goodfellas or film version of Breaking Bad.

Great cast, but ultimately a disappointing film. The first half was well done, IMO, however all the effort was ruined with the ridiculously corny & predictable ending. Woody Harrelson was a frighteningly evil character that should have played a larger part. Had I known a little more about Braddock, PA the events of the film may not have seemed so unlikely (e.g. how the protagonist and Forrest Wittaker's characters cross paths seems unbelievable, until you find that Braddock is a town with a very low population; even still the likelihood is low).

I give it a C+.
 
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And this is why there are so many movies and some people love them and others don't :)

I saw it and thought it was basically worse than the trailer … thin and flat characters, and mind-numbingly bad plot with stupid 'message', total waste of potentially great Tony Danza character, 'magical thinking' trope from little sister and so on. Worst movie I saw all year.

I thought it was a good critique at how screwed up our society is. Always looking for instant-gratification in everything, most people having their own mindless routines, being self-centered, and not even realizing that even the priests that they've been trained go to for salvation, are the same self-centered mindless zombies that regurgitate the same thing over and over.

Overall I quite liked the character of Jon. He somewhat evolved as a character, even if it was bit forced. Maybe I'm just a fan of Levitt.
 
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Given that I wouldn't have watched it if it wasn't mentioned here, granted that was mainly by PrimeJunta or DeepO, it occurred to me that I may find some recommendation of a film similar to Tarkovsky's Stalker. I was tempted to necro this thread but posting here *should* suffice.
 
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my friend took me to a press screening of Wolf of Wall Street the other day. On one hand, in the beginning it had some really snappy dialogue, and there were some fun characters - but overall it was 3 hours of watching Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends party hard, then harder, then even harder. Watching someone snort coke off a female body part can only be amusing so many times, you know.

Roughly 1/16 the depth Scorsese is capable of, for example Taxi Driver. I could identify with Travis Bickle, I could sympathise with that anti-hero. I felt for him. He had depth. Leo has no depth in this movie, he is a frat-boy hero - snorting coke off hookers while living in total excess off the backs of people he's scammed. Really? I just felt nothing for this character, completely soulless

Got to see lots of boobies tho, if that does it for you then you may like this film. It used to do it for me back in the early 80's, then again i was like 10….
 
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Out of the Furnace 8.5/10

Fantastic characters and acting, which is what I tend to care about the most. The revenge plot was pretty standard, but they avoided some of the worst clichés. Not sure what to make of the ending, but I was fully engaged throughout. Loved how Dafoe was basically a bad guy with a really good heart - which is very rare in Hollywood.
 
I finally watched This is the End yesterday. I had been hearing about it for quite some time, and I was not disappointed. Easily the funniest movie I've seen this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i24fo2W5EaE

We watched it last night, and while I think it was better than most of the total crap the actors have been in, it was good only as a 'brain vacation' sort of thing. If you want to disengage, lay back and laugh at jerk-off and 'shart' jokes, this is the thing for you. If you watched the trailer, realize you have seen about half the funny scenes. We don't see loads of movies so I can't put it into context with the rest of the year. Definitely not awful, but if it is the funniest of 2013, then it was an abysmal year for comedies.
 
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We watched it last night, and while I think it was better than most of the total crap the actors have been in, it was good only as a 'brain vacation' sort of thing. If you want to disengage, lay back and laugh at jerk-off and 'shart' jokes, this is the thing for you. If you watched the trailer, realize you have seen about half the funny scenes. We don't see loads of movies so I can't put it into context with the rest of the year. Definitely not awful, but if it is the funniest of 2013, then it was an abysmal year for comedies.

Promising. Added on to rent list. Will watch it during next few days, and will write if it's not good.

Finally saw it too & enjoyed it. The way Michael Cera was portrayed was funny. While I'm sure it was for the film's purposes, it does make one wonder how different stars behave from the on-screen or PR personas. And unfortunately Danny McBride seems only able to be Kenny Powers (though I like Eastbound and Down).
 
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Out of the Furnace 8.5/10

Fantastic characters and acting, which is what I tend to care about the most. The revenge plot was pretty standard, but they avoided some of the worst clichés. Not sure what to make of the ending, but I was fully engaged throughout. Loved how Dafoe was basically a bad guy with a really good heart - which is very rare in Hollywood.

I agree on the characters & acting. Great cast, and Harrelson was frightening.

I don't think Defoe's character (Petty, IIRC) had such a "really good heart." Perhaps on the continuum of career criminals he's a saint, but there were allusions to his nature in the beginning of the film. Anyway, the relationship between Harrelson's & Defoe's characters would have been interesting. But I suppose it would go beyond the scope of the film.

Curious, what cliches are you referring to?
 
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I agree on the characters & acting. Great cast, and Harrelson was frightening.

I don't think Defoe's character (Petty, IIRC) had such a "really good heart." Perhaps on the continuum of career criminals he's a saint, but there were allusions to his nature in the beginning of the film. Anyway, the relationship between Harrelson's & Defoe's characters would have been interesting. But I suppose it would go beyond the scope of the film.

Curious, what cliches are you referring to?

I don't think that relationship would have been particularly interesting - as it was pretty obvious it was just a business thing between people who hated each other.

As for Dafoe not having a good heart, we disagree - because we're talking a very rough environment and he had every reason to use people for his own benefit as he had a significant debt with a psycho, and yet he did what he could to NOT take advantage of the brother, who had already failed to pay him. He was an honest criminal - which to me is no different from an honest person of any career.

As for clichés:

One cliché would be that Dafoe's character would have been the one to "lure" the brother to fight but instead he did pretty much what he could to dissuade him, and another would be that the brother would refuse to take a fall in the fight and piss off DeGroat for that reason. I fully expected those two to happen and they didn't. One more would be that Bale's character would relent and not kill the bastard at the end. A small one near the beginning of the film is that the brother fails to show up for the drink at the bar - which in 9 out of 10 movies means he'd be in big trouble because otherwise we'd know why he wasn't there as agreed - but instead he's just not there and we never know why. The girlfriend ditches Bale without even visiting him, which makes her a bitch in my opinion - and I like that, because the cliché would have been that she had a justifiable reason to seek out someone else after some big conflict, which would make her more sympathetic and a typical Hollywood nice girl. I also loved how they didn't drown the audience in the tragedy of the car accident - and used cheap tricks like showing the dead child and dwell on Bale's regret. That's something that would have happened in most US movies as they tend to be extremely preachy. I also loved how they only showed a glimpse of the hardship Bale faced in prison - and I was just about to get bored with yet another prison drama. We just had a single scene - and that was more than enough to know he didn't have an easy time in there.

Essentially, I felt the movie had real people in it and it didn't preach to me - which is very rare for a Hollywood film.
 
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