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Post by Arthur Gordon Scratch on Aug 10, 2017 16:11:20 GMT -5
Each cell is an oil painting??? Holy frijoles... Try to top that, computer animation!!! That looks like an interesting use of rotoscoping. I feel like any Van Gogh biopic has big shoes to fill given the high quality of Lust for Life (1956) which has a brilliant performance by Kirk Douglas and is one of my favorite films.  |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 10, 2017 16:14:51 GMT -5
Will have to add the 1991 Van Gogh biopic to my watchlist on Letterbox as a reminder to watch it later. I had no idea it even existed. |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 11, 2017 10:37:25 GMT -5
Arrival (2016)
I watched this on EPIX as it's free this weekend. It was better than I was expecting and used some interesting concepts. I thoughts the casting was pretty good. Amy Adams plays a linguistics expert who works with the military and a physicist played by Jeremy Renner to find a way to communicate with aliens who arrive in giant spaceships at various locations around the planet. The situation becomes extremely tense as the world stands on the brink of war. I'm generally not a fan of CGI but I liked the menacing almost squid-like design of the Heptapods. I thought the reveal was unexpected and really tied everything together in an interesting way.
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Post by Jesse on Aug 11, 2017 10:48:56 GMT -5
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
This was similar to Dazed and Confused except it involves a college baseball team in the 80s instead of a high school class. The music is good in a nostalgic way and some of it was funny.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 11, 2017 11:21:59 GMT -5
Arrival (2016) I watched this on EPIX as it's free this weekend. It was better than I was expecting and used some interesting concepts. I thoughts the casting was pretty good. Amy Adams plays a linguistics expert who works with the military and a physicist played by Jeremy Renner to find a way to communicate with aliens who arrive in giant spaceships at various locations around the planet. The situation becomes extremely tense as the world stands on the brink of war. I'm generally not a fan of CGI but I liked the menacing almost squid-like design of the Heptapods. I thought the reveal was unexpected and really tied everything together in an interesting way. Enough for me to cry in the theatre! Such moments of clarity are awesome; those precious moments where everything becomes clear and you have to reinterpret all that you thought you knew. Villeneuve did not disappoint with that one. As if he ever does!!! |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 12, 2017 11:29:58 GMT -5
Sicario (2015)
Speaking of Denis Villeneuve movies I checked this out and was not disappointed. The casting is pretty good, the story is interesting and there's lots of exciting action. There are some really intense scenes throughout this and both Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro give excellent performances.
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Post by Jesse on Aug 13, 2017 13:51:36 GMT -5
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
I was unimpressed when I first saw the trailers for this remake but I ended up enjoying it. I liked some of the casting and thought the final climactic battle scenes were well made. It might be interesting to see Antoine Fuqua direct a war movie. I'm a big fan of both the John Sturges and Kurosawa versions of this story but probably wouldn't recommend it for fans of those. However anyone who liked Training Day might also enjoy this.
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Post by Jesse on Aug 13, 2017 14:03:12 GMT -5
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
I'm completely unfamiliar with all things Harry Potter but decided to give this a chance. I'm sure all the nods and references were completely lost on me. CGI heavy movies like this generally don't interest me but this was entertaining enough. There are some really cool looking creatures designs throughout and some trippy magic sequences. Probably not something I'll watch again though.
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Post by impulse on Aug 14, 2017 10:14:45 GMT -5
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) I'm completely unfamiliar with all things Harry Potter but decided to give this a chance. I'm sure all the nods and references were completely lost on me. CGI heavy movies like this generally don't interest me but this was entertaining enough. There are some really cool looking creatures designs throughout and some trippy magic sequences. Probably not something I'll watch again though. If you thought this was okay-isn enough, I'd recommend steering clear of the other Harry Potter movies. They are middling at best. The ideal presentation of Harry Potter in my opinion are the British release of the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry if you ever want to take the plunge. The books are better than the movies, and Fry elevates them further. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 14, 2017 10:23:15 GMT -5
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) I'm completely unfamiliar with all things Harry Potter but decided to give this a chance. I'm sure all the nods and references were completely lost on me. CGI heavy movies like this generally don't interest me but this was entertaining enough. There are some really cool looking creatures designs throughout and some trippy magic sequences. Probably not something I'll watch again though. If you thought this was okay-isn enough, I'd recommend steering clear of the other Harry Potter movies. They are middling at best. The ideal presentation of Harry Potter in my opinion are the British release of the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry if you ever want to take the plunge. The books are better than the movies, and Fry elevates them further. The Harry Potter books are great books to read to your kids when they're that right age. But you have to be absolutely sure to turn your brain off and just enjoy reading them to your kids. Because if you actually think about them they are a den of plot holes and nonsensical plotting you can drive a 747 through. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,222 
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Post by Confessor on Aug 14, 2017 13:41:28 GMT -5
I read roughly the first third of the first Harry Potter book, back in the day, and I thought it was a load of poorly written, sub-standard dross. It also struck me as very much a kiddies' book and I couldn't for the life of me understand why so many adults liked the series.
However, my wife is a big fan of the books and she always says that the first one is nowhere near the best and that they do get better and better as the series progresses. To a lesser extent, she's also a fan of the films and a couple of Christmases ago I agreed to watch all eight of them in order with her. I have to say that, actually, even going in as staunch Harry Potter naysayer, I did find myself enjoying the films quite a bit. Separated from J.K. Rowling's woefully pedestrian prose style, I could totally see why so many kids (and adults) got swept up in the adventures. There's definitely a touch of magic to the saga (and I don't just mean the magic that the wizard's use in the story).
I went and saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with the wife when it came out at the cinema and I enjoyed it just fine while it played, but I have no particular hankering to see it again.
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Post by impulse on Aug 14, 2017 15:11:02 GMT -5
The Harry Potter books are great books to read to your kids when they're that right age. But you have to be absolutely sure to turn your brain off and just enjoy reading them to your kids. Because if you actually think about them they are a den of plot holes and nonsensical plotting you can drive a 747 through. I enjoyed them even as an adult, but yes, you can pick apart the plot if you want to do so, particularly early on. I found the world and characters engaging enough that I didn't want to, though, and I was having enough fun that I didn't notice them. In general, I find that you can poke holes in pretty much any story if you really want to, so this is generally true. I read roughly the first third of the first Harry Potter book, back in the day, and I thought it was a load of poorly written, sub-standard dross. It also struck me as very much a kiddies' book and I couldn't for the life of me understand why so many adults liked the series. To be fair, the first book is definitely clearly a children's book and is written as such. The writing style and thematic content both mature dramatically after the first book, and I found it got far more palatable. I also didn't start with the first book, so I wasn't initially put off in that way. I randomly picked up the third book and read the first 20 pages are so as at the time everyone I knew was rereading the entire series again in preparation for the next book or movie (I don't remember which now) and I had nothing else to do, and I was immediately hooked. It's certainly not the most eloquent or nuanced writing style, and the plotting isn't going to win any awards, but the atmosphere that Rowling crafts truly is magical, and I've yet to find something else that quite captures the same magic. The world, the atmosphere, the character interaction, and the relationships are truly what shine about Harry Potter, and specifically Stephen Frys' reading takes it one step further. It's comfort food for your ears, and I find it's the perfect escapism when I don't want to be in the real world for a bit. Incidentally, it's the cutting of all of this from the films to make time for the plot points that makes them largely crap for me; they cut out what makes them good to leave just the Cliff's notes of the plot which was never the strong point, and the cool scenes they retain from the books they tend to implement rather weakly. But this is the new movies thread, and I digress. I could talk about this at length.  |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2017 18:18:58 GMT -5
I went and saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with the wife when it came out at the cinema and I enjoyed it just fine while it played, but I have no particular hankering to see it again. I'm with you Confessor on this movie and I saw it not so long ago and I saw it once and won't see it again. |
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Post by Jesse on Aug 15, 2017 12:12:37 GMT -5
If you thought this was okay-isn enough, I'd recommend steering clear of the other Harry Potter movies. They are middling at best. The ideal presentation of Harry Potter in my opinion are the British release of the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry if you ever want to take the plunge. The books are better than the movies, and Fry elevates them further. I watched the Best of RiffTrax Harry Potter short and I feel that's probably all the Harry Potter I'll ever need. |
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Post by impulse on Aug 15, 2017 12:34:56 GMT -5
If you thought this was okay-isn enough, I'd recommend steering clear of the other Harry Potter movies. They are middling at best. The ideal presentation of Harry Potter in my opinion are the British release of the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry if you ever want to take the plunge. The books are better than the movies, and Fry elevates them further. I watched the Best of RiffTrax Harry Potter short and I feel that's probably all the Harry Potter I'll ever need. Ha. Fair enough. They're not for everyone. Maybe its a Millennial thing? I don't know. |
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