[QuickTidal]

The Missus was horribly stomach ill on New Years and we were unsure what she had and if it might have been contagious, so she stayed in our bedroom and I rang in the New Year with a marathon of HARRY POTTER on BluRay (watched Films 3, 5, & 6. Still great. I never get tired of watching them. Ever.

[worry]

Watched Edge of Tomorrow. Not flawless, but decidedly pretty awesome. Bizarrely telling about how Hollywood thinks, that Cruise was billed as the sole lead.

Spoiler

Only major complaint: J Squad underutilized in the finale. They're colorful and decently individualized by action movie standards, and the beach front scenes seem like a lot of tease which comes back around when they're recruited for the finale: and then only three of them make it past the plane anyway, and have minor generic heroic moments in the midst of a big action scene. No real squad based action and nothing particularly unique about this whole segment (except the aliens are still really impressive to watch).

Anyway, wasn't disappointed.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

A Demon Llama!, on 04 January 2015 - 05:26 PM, said:

Snowpiercer was pretty good but was there a reason to the ending?

Spoiler

The train gets derailed by the snow so everything that happened during the movie and up to that point is insignificant and doesnt really matter? I thought it was wierd as we get to a point where the main hero has to choose what to do and bam. Seemed off to me.

Spoiler

The avalanche was caused by Namgoong's explosive blowing out the gate on the side of the train.

[A Demon Llama!]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 05 January 2015 - 11:04 PM, said:

A Demon Llama!, on 04 January 2015 - 05:26 PM, said:

Snowpiercer was pretty good but was there a reason to the ending?

Spoiler

The train gets derailed by the snow so everything that happened during the movie and up to that point is insignificant and doesnt really matter? I thought it was wierd as we get to a point where the main hero has to choose what to do and bam. Seemed off to me.

Spoiler

The avalanche was caused by Namgoong's explosive blowing out the gate on the side of the train.

Hmmm, I must have missed that.

[worry]

It's a big planet.

[amphibian]

Briar King, on 09 January 2015 - 01:53 AM, said:

Jupiter Ascending finally has a date. 2/6. Bout time. Why was it delayed so long?

Studio thinks it has a bomb on its hands. An expensive one too.

[QuickTidal]

Incorrect, they were behind on visual effects and the marketing dept wanted more time to shore up the audience.

[amphibian]

They still stuck it in the February wasteland for movies. This timing is more important than the visual effects catching up for the movie. If it was just that, then they'd have held onto it longer for March or April.

Before you bring up Gravity, that had a hook of being THE MOST VISUALLY EFFECTS VISUAL EFFECTS MOVIE ever + George Clooney and Sandra Bullock.

This movie got forced to re-shoots 2x "for plot clarity" and pushed into special effects polishing for 7 months, before an ad campaign that hasn't actually started as of 1/9/15.

This is a bomb, from the studio's viewpoint.

I will probably enjoy the hell out of this movie though.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 09 January 2015 - 06:11 AM

[Tsundoku]

I saw the trailer the other day. It doesn't look like a mainstream kind of movie.

Then again, some films recently that haven't done so well in the USA market have done quite well in foreign markets.

Is it just me or has that been more of thing lately with movies either doing far better in foreign markets by chance or design?

This post has been edited by Sombra: 09 January 2015 - 08:57 AM

[polishgenius]

Usually being pushed months back does traditionally mean the studio thinks it's shit, but these days it's more and more common for special effects to actually be the reason. And being pushed into February means the studio aren't confident it can compete with the massive flood of blockbusters later in the year - but that doesn't necessarily mean they think it's a bad film. It's just there's so many franchises with existing fanbases spooling up for later in the year that there's no real space to put something that will have to build an audience mostly from scratch.

Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman: The Secret Service got exactly the same treatment (it was originally meant to come out in October and is now coming out on the 30th of Jan) and I reckon there's no chance whatsoever of that being a bad film (and it's already getting good reviews). The chances of Jupiter Ascending being a bit shit are much larger, of course, but I'm still hopeful.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 09 January 2015 - 06:05 AM, said:

They still stuck it in the February wasteland for movies. This timing is more important than the visual effects catching up for the movie. If it was just that, then they'd have held onto it longer for March or April.

Before you bring up Gravity, that had a hook of being THE MOST VISUALLY EFFECTS VISUAL EFFECTS MOVIE ever + George Clooney and Sandra Bullock.

This movie got forced to re-shoots 2x "for plot clarity" and pushed into special effects polishing for 7 months, before an ad campaign that hasn't actually started as of 1/9/15.

This is a bomb, from the studio's viewpoint.

I will probably enjoy the hell out of this movie though.

Nah, this is the Wahcowski's. The studio knows they they have something nontrsaditional on their hands with them consideing CLOUD ATLAS. I'm sure they have faith. And there were reshoots for CLOUD ATLAS as well.

And what PG said.

[Tiste Simeon]

Cloud Atlas, despite being amazing, didn't do too well. Do you think the execs are assuming the same here? Me, I'm definitely going to see it!

[Nicodimas]

Jupiter Ascending..

I was reading someone on a different forum who got to see a test screening. They stated it was all over the place and needed serious work. It got crushed on its Test screening hence it got pushed back. On flipside...this next Mad Max...can't waaaaitt

I am expecting nothing with JA.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 10 January 2015 - 05:49 AM

[amphibian]

Inherent Vice is a masterpiece - but a good chunk of people will hate it and not watch the whole thing.

It's the best adaptation of a book that I've ever seen. It perfectly captures the essence of the book and adds its own twists upon it (although I was sad to see a few things not make it to the theater version).

The book's tone is sorta like the Big Lebowski with less direct comedy. The movie makes the story more paranoid and Chinatown-like. The settings are perfect. As in absolutely perfect for an idealized 1970s version of Surfer California. The costuming is perfect and so is the technology/cars etc. Everyone looks so natural that it's as if that world really exists, rather than just being something we pretend it exists.

Every member of the cast hits their role out of the park. Joaquin Phoenix disappears so deeply into Sportello that it's oddly like watching a friend that I might know go through everything there with both of us being whacked out on some drugs and whacked out on not understanding the games of law enforcement/rich people.

At the same time, there were 7 people in the theater at the 11:30 pm Saturday showing and 2 walked out halfway through because it was too strange for them.

PT Anderson is a treasure and I'm amazed he got this level of cast and this exquisite movie made. Just wow.

But YMMV. It's really weird and requires trust that if you make it to the end, you'll get answers. If you're not ok with that in a movie, I'd skip it.

[amphibian]

This article prompted me to recall watching Babadook (SPOILERS ARE IN THE ARTICLE): http://www.avclub.co...-best-ac-213737

Have to go into spoilers to talk about my perceptions of the movie:

Spoiler

I 90% liked Babadook. It didn't go for the gruesome stuff, it didn't go for the cheap "jump out of the dark" moments and it stayed true to its vision. However, what's unusual about this is that there was something scarier than the Babadook in it: the mom.

Honestly, you could remove the Babdook entirely from this movie to make it a story about a fucked up kid living with his mother's mental illness and it's still horrifying. The scariest thing in the movie was the mother shifting from "blaaaah" to acts of violence and how the kid, who's fucked up in his own way, copes with it by being kinda senselessly violent himself. I quite liked how the movie played up her depression and took that weird swing of an ending in which the she "makes peace" with the Babadook/their mental illnesses.

The kid was perfectly cast too. Nearly hatable, yet able to be sympathized with. The mother, a little less so, and I think she didn't handle the horror parts as well as she did the rest of the blaaaah or the dramatic talks. I think a different actress might have really made the movie pop more, but thems the breaks.

The Babadook is a great movie for those who like psychological horror over gruesome horror.

[Mentalist]

Watched that Russian movie that just took the Golden Globe for "Best Script", Leviathan

powerful and scary.

[worry]

If that's that fantasy movie with Jeff Bridges then I've been seeing the trailer before movies for like the past 2+ years. I think the first time I saw it was before the first Hobbit. That big a delay...not encouraging.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 15 January 2015 - 03:28 AM, said:

If that's that fantasy movie with Jeff Bridges then I've been seeing the trailer before movies for like the past 2+ years. I think the first time I saw it was before the first Hobbit. That big a delay...not encouraging.

The main delay was due to the falling apart of the union between Legendary Pictures and Warner Brothers (who would have distributed), and Legendary had to shop it to a new studio (Universal), there was a second delay but I'm unsure what it was about.

The thing it DOES have going for it is that it's directed by Sergei Bodrov who did the amazing MONGOL.

Lets face facts. This is a fantasy big screen movie. I'll be seeing it in the theatre. LOL

[Tiste Simeon]

QuickTidal, on 15 January 2015 - 11:42 AM, said:

Lets face facts. This is a fantasy big screen movie. I'll be seeing it in the theatre. LOL

Heh. A lot of films boil down to something like this for me. Yep we can debate about certain things all day (e.g. New Star Wars movie) but I'm still gonna be there nerding out in the first week!

[Aptorian]

When I watched the trailer for Seventh Son I thought it was going to be a surprise film adaption of the Witcher series. It almost sounds like it's about the Witcher, last of his kind, made/born to fight monsters, help man, etc. etc.