The story's about as subtle as a hammer to the head and the acting ranges from non-offensive to hilari-bad (looking at your bad French accent, Jody Foster), but it builds an interesting world and it has some great action scenes. Plus, it has a Burial song on the soundtrack.
2 1/2 socialized medicine/immigration/occupy metaphors out of 5.
This second installment of Tolkien's The Hobbit transformed to the big screen is an overall improvement over the first installment (which I give a 3/5). Overall the movie takes itself a little more seriously, without crossing the line of taking itself too seriously. While the film does overstay it's welcome, you get the sense that Peter Jackson is still providing you with solid content, instead of just stretching things out for no real reason. The voice acting of Smaug the dragon is pretty great, and if you go in with the mindset that you're about to watch an action movie based on a children's novel, you'll probably find something you enjoy.
The resurgence of Harmony Korine with Spring Breakers got me to go back last night and watch Gummo again. Now that is a fucked up, but ultimately unforgettable movie. I'd have given it a 5/5 kitties before watching it again. It holds up still, but the shock value was less than when I watched it the first time years and years ago.
The first Hunger Games. Yeah, I'm late to the party but I didn't really enjoy that movie. I can see getting a lot out of it if you read the books but I found myself rolling my eyes and shaking my head a lot through it. I usually have a pretty open mind when it comes to most things (I actually like the first Twilight movie) (I'm a 23 year old man) (ish) but Hunger Games just didn't do much for me.
This weekend my buddy and I went for a double feature involving two movies based on young adult novels with "er Game" in the title.
Ender's Game sucked! It was a super accurate adaptation, meaning all the characters were terrible and impossible to like. I found Ender particularly grating. Also I'd be interested to know how someone who hasn't read the book reacted to the twist. It seemed a little rushed and confusing? I told my brother it was awesome though, because I'm an asshole. 6 buggers out of 10 buggers (Two of these buggers are composed of pure spite).
The new Hunger Games was pretty good. It took too long to get going though, it must have been over an hour before the games actually started this time. Some of that early stuff was cool, but they really could've cut a bit. Also I find myself spacing out whenever the relationship stuff is going on, Peta is too defined by his attachment to Katniss, and I don't know how we're supposed to care about what's-his-face with how little screen time he gets. A seemingly indifferent girl choosing between two bland, vaguely hunky dudes is not my idea of an interesting romance. Also cliff hangers are bullshit, I don't want to read the novels and I don't want to wait 2 years to find out what happens. 7 and a half golden guyliner brushes out of a possible 10.
I also watched Identity Thief and I don't know why, and I wish I hadn't finished it because it was bad. 2 numbers out of 10 numbers.
Goon. Heard Patrick (or was it Drew?) mention it on the podcast and thought that I should finally get around to seeing it. It was pretty good, despite my inherent dislike of Seann William Scott. I do enjoy Allison Pill and Liev Schreiber and both are pretty great in this one. I also enjoy the cartoonish nature of the violence.
Plus, in my ongoing quest to become a Canadian, it's teaching me about hockey and fighting in hockey.
Capricorn One. Not bad, hasn't aged particularly well, Elliott Gould is excellent though. The ending sucked, all the suspense is just left hanging there while the credits roll.
Its an entertaining movie. As every single movie from Emmerich, your capacity to enjoy it is completely dependent of how fast can you turn off your brain, and how long can you keep it off. The moment you start thinking about its plot or about its political messages (as subtle as a kick in the balls), the moment it breaks apart.
The movie is a classic "man locked in a place with a lot of bad guys" with some "air force one" mixed in, to the point it almost feels like a failed script for the next Die Hard and Tatum making his best Willis impersonation, where the bad guys are flawlessly competent until they meet the guy that was there by chance and is trying to save his family.
@fredchuckdave: Ohh... I agree. ID4 was a masterpiece in terms of blockbuster entertainment.
But it did have the same problems every other Emmerich movie has (think 2012 or Day After Tomorrow), which is that his scripts don't survive the least bit of scrutiny.
Literally the funniest movie I've ever seen. Not a minute went by where I wasn't laughing. There were minute-long stretches multiple times where I laughed all the way through. I went in not expecting it to be better than the first, but it blows the first out of the water. Too funny.
The Molly Maguires. Like 1970 flick about anti-establishment terrorists amongst Irish immigrants in Pennsylvania. Richard Harris and Sean Connery are both great, though neither is convincingly Irish. There was also a police captain who was supposed to be Welsh, but his accent just sounded weird. Maybe it was authentic. Real interesting story. I'd give it 4 out of 5 Americans who can't tell one kind of British Isles accent from another.
It was dumb, but it was dumb in some good ways. It's not great or anything, but it was well-paced and cheesy and, perhaps most importantly of all, I was laughing with it more than I was laughing at it. I need to re-watch the first one, which isn't even on Netflix.
EDIT: Score? Oh. Uh. Eight gallons of orange worm goop out of ten, I guess.
Great improvement over the first. I liked that Bard was introduced a lot sooner considering what's to come.
Pros;
As it being my first HFR experience it really is impressive stuff to see and I hope it evolves and is used more. HFR > 3D. My favourite shot was Thorin standing on top of Smaug's snout.
Smaug. Great design, great voice.
Pacing was better than the first.
Art Direction, especially in Lake Town, which was pretty impressive.
Cons;
Length, this film does need an edit here and there, especially for the...
...romance storyline. I don't know why that's there, seemed to only enforce the latter scenes in Lake Town.
The camera work. Why does the DP need to make an excessive use of camera pans and swoops was beyond me, 3D HFR was fine with the more static shots as it is.
A fun riff on the Monkey King's imprisonment under the mountain. Excellent fight scenes (Jackie and Jet are super). A tiny bit draggy here and there...
Some absolutely top notch performances by all involved, and the movie has a great kinetic energy to it all. Very Guy Richie-esque in its direction style, but a little more grounded and not quite as cartoonish. Very character driven and generally small scale (like half of the movie takes place at Ray Winston's character's house), which I always tend to find more appealing.
Finally just watched Pacific Rim, went into thinking this is going to be so horribly stupid I won't make it an hour. Finished it a with a smile and although you could tell pretty much everything that was going to happen with the plot and characters, I had a great freaking time. 5/5
Desolation of Smaug today i'd give it 4/5 (but in my rating scale more of a 7.5). It was good and I liked some of the changes from the book but some just seemed unnecessary and the Mirkwood sequence seemed too short to me. I remembered the dread of them being lost and Bombur having to be dragged etc. Anyway Smaug himself was great, loved the expansion of Bard and cant wait for the battle of five armies!!
The last movie I watched was Edward Scissorhands. I've been on a classic Tim Burton thing lately. Man he used to make good movies. Not that long ago either, I mean Big Fish is great!
I give Edward Scissorhands 5 greens out of 16 blues.
Saw Anchorman 2 today. It had some funny moments and there were some clever callbacks to the original, but it played like a series of SNL skits rather than a full fleshed out movie. 2.5/5 stars. The first Anchorman - 5/5.
I think it looks beautiful (every frame is a well composed photograph) and it's attempt at covering human loss and creation is noble, but it's pretty incoherent. I think it's one of the few movies that could benefit from being much longer. And I'm in luck because Malick is, apparently, prepping a directors cut of the film. I read somewhere that it could be 6 hours, but I dont know if he'll go that far with it.
Also, I appreciate seeing a christian perspective on some of the topics covered in the film. I am not a christian, by I value gaining perspective. It's the reason why I like Malick so much, because his approach is very different than most director, and I think it's because of his religious background.
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