The "I just saw" thread

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

The Visit

Grandparents can be terrifying things.
Especially, when you don't know them.


Revolutionary Road

It's all about the hopeless emptiness of life.
Or about people trapped in relationships that were never meant to be, in the first place.

Mistress America

Or how to be a college snot-nosed brat who thinks she knows 'failure' just because she's too busy to risk anything.
More comfortable to bitterly comment from the side, right, Tracy?

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

The Final Girls

This had so much potential.
But it flopped.


The Machine

Better than Ex-Machina.
The end felt rushed, though.
Like Rambo meets Blade Runner, on steroids.

[Condottiere 40K]

Monkeybone - Only worthwhile to watch for Rose McGowan, probably why her role was over emphasized in the trailer, and Chris Kattan playing a zombie. I'll give Esposito a pass.

Seems to have miscast the other primary and secondary roles, I suspect though you needed Jim Carrey to pull it off, a more inspired director, and a better script.

[Kyriakos]

New trailer.



PG-13??!!

Blizzard sucks.

Dwarves with eye-patch and pistol suck too, btw.

[Condottiere 40K]

That sounds more like Warhammer's Slayer pirates

[Kyriakos]

How can a movie not have gore when one of the sides uses chainsaws?

[Condottiere 40K]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - It's an article of faith that the first film was terrible, or at best, silly.

So I watched the extended three hour version, and patiently waited for the movie to go downhill. It starts pleasantly, and surprisingly doesn't.

It gets Labyrinthy at two hours four minutes when the Goblin King sings, and kinda stupid two hours twenty three minutes. And goddamn eagles.

Other than that, this is a movie more to enjoy a favourite story, with some pretty good performances and just let the ambiance flow over you.

[Inhuman One]

I am currently busy watching the Hobbit trilogy, watched the first two movies and have not watched the last one yet which I'll watch when I can do that in peace.

Already saw the first movie once, its not as bad as I remembered it but still many scenes should have been cut. The most obvious one the one with the stone giants. That was just pointless. Heck half the scenes are pointless because it does not contribute to the story in any way.

Desolation of Smaug is mostly filler it seems to stretch out the story. Nothing really noteable happens in the movie. That barrel escape is probably the lowpoint of the movie. Its a videogame and not a movie at that point.

What bothers me the most in these movies is how useless the dwarves are. They constantly need to be saved by Gandalf, Bilbo or elves. We dont see them doing much fighting, instead others keep saving them.
And theres also so many of them, only few seem to actually contribute something. If they did not push elves into the story who actually arent in it they could have spend more time on the actual dwarves themselves and flesh them out more, let them be more competent.

Well that and some of the dwarves dont even look like dwarves. Kili and the one with the silly hat just dont look the part at all. Kind of bothers me too.

I just hope the third one can at least wrap it all up in a good way since as it is, the second one just is no fun. I actually did enjoy the female elf who is not in the book, she is a fun character since she does show a different kind of elf. Legolas is pointless though.

[Inhuman One]

And watched battle of the five armies yesterday... a few nice moments but mostly its pretty terrible.

Let's see.. theres elves, dwarves and orcs.. calling the handfull of soldiers from laketown an army would be generous. And are the eagles supposed to be the fifth army? again kind of a stretch. Poor title for the movie.

I also really dont like how the battle is eventually forgotten once Thorin goes up the mountain. We dont see the conclusion, we dont see if Thandruil rejoins the fight with his elves. He just returns briefly to speak out of character to Legolas and Tauriel.
Also, there is no conclusion to that battle at all.. no aftermatch to explain whats going to happen to the people of lake town, if the elves and dwarves will get along better, who will be the new dwarf king, etc.
And the battles with Azog and that other equally bland orc leader where terrible and just kept dragging on. That stupid jump through the ice that Azog did might be one of the dumbest things I saw in a movie and thats saying a lot.

Also, what the heck where those dwarves planning to do? They come to fight elves with nothing but pikemen, while the elves have no cavalry, only archers who are also swordsmen. Speaking of wich, how are this armies? Even the orcs have more variety since they at least have trolls and goblins too. I gues its too expensive to CGI more than one type of soldier?
Really should have shown more variety in these armies. Those dwarves should have had axemen too at least. And also suddenly the dwarven party of the three movies can suddenly fight. Before they could pretty much only get captured, flee and get resqued by others. They can also summon rams out of nowhere, and most are not seen once Thorin goes up the mountain with three others. I am pretty sure that some of the dwarves we have never seen land a hit, or may not even been mentioned by name.

And of course Smaug goes down in the first fifteen minutes or such of the movie, why not conclude the previous movie with that?

[Your Lame Sister]

And watched battle of the five armies yesterday... a few nice moments but mostly its pretty terrible.

Let's see.. theres elves, dwarves and orcs.. calling the handfull of soldiers from laketown an army would be generous. And are the eagles supposed to be the fifth army? again kind of a stretch. Poor title for the movie.

I also really dont like how the battle is eventually forgotten once Thorin goes up the mountain. We dont see the conclusion, we dont see if Thandruil rejoins the fight with his elves. He just returns briefly to speak out of character to Legolas and Tauriel.
Also, there is no conclusion to that battle at all.. no aftermatch to explain whats going to happen to the people of lake town, if the elves and dwarves will get along better, who will be the new dwarf king, etc.
And the battles with Azog and that other equally bland orc leader where terrible and just kept dragging on. That stupid jump through the ice that Azog did might be one of the dumbest things I saw in a movie and thats saying a lot.

Also, what the heck where those dwarves planning to do? They come to fight elves with nothing but pikemen, while the elves have no cavalry, only archers who are also swordsmen. Speaking of wich, how are this armies? Even the orcs have more variety since they at least have trolls and goblins too. I gues its too expensive to CGI more than one type of soldier?
Really should have shown more variety in these armies. Those dwarves should have had axemen too at least. And also suddenly the dwarven party of the three movies can suddenly fight. Before they could pretty much only get captured, flee and get resqued by others. They can also summon rams out of nowhere, and most are not seen once Thorin goes up the mountain with three others. I am pretty sure that some of the dwarves we have never seen land a hit, or may not even been mentioned by name.

And of course Smaug goes down in the first fifteen minutes or such of the movie, why not conclude the previous movie with that?

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote here... But didn't you like the LAST scene of the movie? You know, when Bilbo comes home, and sits alone with the ring, and we cut to old!Bilbo, and then Gandalf knocks on the door and Bilbo smiles as the movie ends. I thought that was a surprisingly well-written and directed scene, and a perfect end to the story. It's so good, it almost feels like it's a part of a different movie. If only the entire trilogy was like that...

[Inhuman One]

Well no, I didnt find it that special since we pretty much had that scene in the original trilogy already.

Then again, I was at that point still thinking about why there was no aftermatch to the battle.

[Kyriakos]

^ Do you mean 'aftermath'?

[Your Lame Sister]

Well no, I didnt find it that special since we pretty much had that scene in the original trilogy already.

Then again, I was at that point still thinking about why there was no aftermatch to the battle.

But... But... But in the Hobbit, the context of that scene is completely different, and context is EVERYTHING. In the Lord of The Rings, that was just an exposition scene, introducing us to the characters of Bilbo and Gandalf, and their relationship. In 'The Hobbit', that scene pretty much sums up the entire main theme of 'The Hobbit' - power/wealth corrupts (Well, I'm not sure if it's the MAIN theme of 'The Hobbit', but it's certainly ONE of the main themes, and it's a theme that's shared with pretty much ALL of Tolkien's works) - and ties it in with the main theme of LoTR - friendship/love can defeat corruption (Again, maybe it's not the MAIN theme, but it's up there): Bilbo sits alone in his house, with the ring, doing nothing, in darkness, in a doomed spiral of numbing greed... Until his old friend Gandalf comes to visit, and Bilbo smiles, and the darkness gets ever-so-slightly lighter.

I don't know, maybe that's just in my head, and maybe the scene is meaningless... But that scene gave me the chills. It's everything I HOPED the Hobbit trilogy would be...

[Condottiere 40K]

Aftermath? It's obvious.

After Afghanistan Erebor, the Coalition of the willing blitzkrieged Iraq Mordor and deposed Saddam Sauron.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Tomorrowland 2015

It's kinda nice to dream about the future, isn't it?
Best futuristic film I've seen so far.



Hide and Seek 2005


'Who is Charlie?'

The answer might not be something you'd expect. Brilliant cinematography and a surprising script.
Wish the action had more variety to it.

[Gallus]

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote here... But didn't you like the LAST scene of the movie? You know, when Bilbo comes home, and sits alone with the ring, and we cut to old!Bilbo, and then Gandalf knocks on the door and Bilbo smiles as the movie ends. I thought that was a surprisingly well-written and directed scene, and a perfect end to the story. It's so good, it almost feels like it's a part of a different movie. If only the entire trilogy was like that...

Ah, but that's because it is. The last scene (and by far the best imo) is taken from Fellowship of the Ring. It just goes to show how poorly written and directed the Hobbit movies are. I really hope we get a 4-5 hour remake in the Fellowship of the Ring style soon.

[Inhuman One]

Well give it time and someone else might make new movies of the lord of the rings, and could start with the hobbit. In ten years or such it could happen.

Personly I look forward to the planned D&D movies though. That's an IP that can be taken in many different directions.

[Condottiere 40K]

So is Warhammer.

While most D&D derived media is meh, Warhammer is blerg ugh.

WotC/Hasbro would have to decide which setting to use, which could confuse their future base, whereas GDW are both reluctant to let anyone else tinker with their only setting, and when they do it, it only gets worse.

[Inhuman One]

Well I think Warhammer is more about the actual war than about stories.. I mean warhammer seems to focus on all kinds of overpowered people and to me that does not make for relateable protagionists unless its going to be a pure action flick like 300 or such.

With D&D they could go for a party based approach, a group of adventurers on a quest. I think that might translate better to a movie. As long as they manage to make the reason why these people travel together a good one. And preferably not something similar to Lord of the Rings. That would likely result in backlash for not being original after all.

The real challenge would be to introduce the audience to the world. I think having a city take centre stage could help anchor it properly, let the audience get to know how the city functions and the protagionists could get caught up in its intrigue.
Waterdeep or Neverwinter seem like obvious choices. Forgotten realms is likely most familiar so to start off with that might be best to go with.

[Kyriakos]

WH40K seems to have a nicely bleak storyline, though. Obviously not aspiring to be high literature, and sense of proportion is even more out of the window than in game of thrones