The Rules of the Game (1939) 10/10 - Very clever and often quite funny. Very well made and quite ahead of its time, in many respects.
Suspicion (1941) 9/10 - Very good Hitchcock. It baffles me that I still haven't taken the time to watch all of his films.
Grand Illusion (1937) 10/10 - Exceptional. Too much to applaud.
I was hoping to see the Hobbit tonight but had to postpone due to my friend breaking a toe [she ran over her own foot with a shopping trolley] - yeah, I laughed too.
For those that have seen the film, is it true that Thorin is much less of a douchebag than he is in the book?
For now I'm listening to the soundtrack. Good fun so far.
The last movie I saw was Dredd [the one with Karl Urban]
it suuuuuuuuucked. zero balls. This movie has no redeeming features. there's a fair amount of gore and action but there's nothing compelling about the story or characters. As poor an adaptation as the previous attempt. Maybe third times a charm? ;)
Man with the Movie Camera (1929) 10/10 - I'll admit I was a bit skeptical at first (a movie without a story - really?), but WOW. The cinematography and the editing were simply mesmerizing. Far ahead of its time. I loved it. It certainly helped too that I'm generally interested by life and history, and this one had both. And while it may claim to have no story, it really has hundreds about the every day lives of Russians in the late twenties. And, of course, the over-arching story, about the man with the camera documenting the picture, who has regressed and become a part of the picture himself, is particularly thought provoking. It really makes one think about the possibilities of movies and movie making.
For those that have seen the film, is it true that Thorin is much less of a douchebag than he is in the book?
More of a douchebag actually, in my opinion. It's one of the few things I disliked about the film.
Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!
Yeah, I agree with Akwat. In the movie he comes off as a major douchebag from the start. Where in the book I thought he was really likeable until the end.
Akwat Kbrana said:
For those that have seen the film, is it true that Thorin is much less of a douchebag than he is in the book?
More of a douchebag actually, in my opinion. It's one of the few things I disliked about the film.
Spoilerspoilerspoliersopuliargutsophdrhlier alert!
He's a little douchey but overcomes it at the end.
CP3S said:
Yeah, I agree with Akwat. In the movie he comes off as a major douchebag from the start. Where in the book I thought he was really likeable until the end.
That's intreresting. He always seemed like an asshole to me. I want him to be an asshole in the film, cuz that's the way I always viewed the character. Hoping to see it asap.
Plenty of time to be douchey or not douchey in the second and third film. ;)
Thorin does have a nice little emotional arc in this one though...
Where were you in '77?
I liked Thorin. However, as unfair as it is to compare, during the film I couldn't help think a few times how much more badass Aragorn is.
“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”
Bernie (2012)
I decided to check this out because I thought it was Jack Black's first serious role, not knowing that it was actually intended as a black comedy. It was very interesting. The best parts of the film though are the actual locals they interviewed that are spread throughout the film. A real bunch of characters. Oddly I think it ends on a great message.
Jack Reacher (2012)
I didn't really know what to expect going into this one. I had hoped it would at least be decent. Turned out pretty darn good. Very enjoyable.
Tobar said:
Basically you hate J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit and wanted a prequel to Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy.
xhonzi said (in ink!):
Not terrible. Fun, but not the experience I was hoping for.
I still think I overall liked it, but here are the reasons I'm not over the moon.
10/14 party members
Hey now... is 10/14 (~7/10) equivalent to hate these days? I didn't hate the smoothie (this term doesn't seem to be taking off the way I hoped) but I didn't love it. Nor do I hate the book. I have fond memories of reading it as a child, but as a thinkining man, I struggle to reconcile it with LotR...
I think Tolkien changed his mind as to what Middle Earth was betwixt the writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Goblin king, in the novel and all adaptations I've seen, seems to have just finished taking his afternoon tea when the party bursts in.
I don't think any goblins in LotR take tea.
Since The Hobbit already exists in its current form as a book and a cartoon, I was hoping that the Jackson team was going to bring the story more in harmony with the adjusted world of the Lord of the Rings. They did somewhat- the Elves that appear in the 2012 film are definitely the elves from LotR books/films and not from the 1937 novel. I just wish that the Trolls and the Goblin king were given more of the same treatment, though that would have had a more destructive/reconstructive effect than the changing of the elves.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
And here's where I call down the fires of heaven upon my poor little head...
The last move I saw was: Journey 2 the Mysterious Island, and it was really fun. More importantly, it wasn't disappointing or frustrating at all. Just fun.
Maybe I'm getting senile, but I think at this point in time I'd rather watch a "try nothing" pile of silliness like Journey 2, or Battleship and not have any expectations and not be disappointed than walk out of Dark Knight Rises, Prometheus, Skyfall, The Hobbit, and Les Miserables (all films that try for something grand) with a mixed bag of disappointments and frustrations.
I feel a bit like Winston Smith deciding to stop fighting and just embrace that Freedom is Slavery afterall. Movies that don't try to be good don't have to be good to be good.
The problem is that my favourite movies are the kind that reach high and succeed. So I will probably continue to look for excellence in movies that attempt to offer it, and rejoice in the few that do whilst I find myself disappointed in the many that don't.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
I just watched Skyfall last night, in fact. Potential wasted. 1.5 out of 4 ridiculous nonsensical endings.
Samsara
Beautiful follow up to Baraka. One of the best documentaries of the year, but the non-narrative style may not be for all.
“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”
xhonzi said:
I think Tolkien changed his mind as to what Middle Earth was betwixt the writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Goblin king, in the novel and all adaptations I've seen, seems to have just finished taking his afternoon tea when the party bursts in.
Tolkien definitely changed the nature of Middle Earth between the writing of the two works. Not really changed so much, as drastically grew and expanded upon it. The Hobbit was just a children's fairytale, while its sequel grew into a very large epic. In The Hobbit, the magic ring that makes you invisible was obviously just a fun little magical item. I remember really wishing I had a ring like that after first reading the book as a youngster. Of course, reading LOTR later my feelings toward the ring changed completely, and it no longer seemed like such a neat little item I wished I had.
Personally, I think the film did a great job of pulling The Hobbit into the universe of the LOTR films by feeling in the blanks and giving the whole thing a bit of a darker feel.
Still, as one of my friends pointed out, when you measure the escape from the goblins with the scene in the Mines of Moria from Fellowship, the contrast between the two films feel very severe. In The Hobbit, you never feel much concern for the escaping dwarves, you see them rolling around, falling great lengths, and bouncing around all over the place without any sign of injury. In Moria, you find yourself on the edge of your seat watching deadly arrow whizz past the heads of the fellowship, feeling real concern for the characters.
Die Hard 2: Die Harder
I make it no secret that I enjoy this one, and in ways find it preferable to the original. It's big, loud, silly, stupid in places, gritty, nasty and the last time the a Die Hard movie felt like a Die Hard movie. Being from 1990, explosions are explosions, fights aren't cut to ADD smithereens, and the hero gets to be a bit self-righteous in addition to being both a failure and the energizer bunny.
The LD PCM allows breathing room for the original audio mix making all the era's effects nice and punchy like we like them.
But for once couldn't we get nice looking transfers for these two films? They weren't shot on video!
4 bloodied ridiculous balls out of 4.
VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader
Monsters Inc. 3D (2001)
As it has in the past, the 3D disappoints in this re-release. However the film is just as fantastic as it ever was. So it was a lot of fun to revisit it. As well as share it with a couple of people who had never seen it before. Looking forward to the forth coming prequel. (Never thought I'd ever hear myself saying that!)
Little Monsters (1989)
WOW this was bad. I've only seen this once before and I remembered liking it a lot. Must have been a long time ago. How was this film ever appealing to anyone? Howie Mandel is annoying as Maurice. That Fred Savage's character found any appeal in sabotaging other kids and making their lives miserable after he'd had the same done to him, just makes his character a complete d-bag. Probably took after his dad who was just terrible despite the couple of quick scenes where they try to make him somewhat redeemable.
Lastly, what is with that title? Sure some of the monsters were on the short side but most of them were adult size. So why the heck would they refer to them as little? Meh.
I find it hard to fathom Pixar can't create a good 3D image, since they go back to their animation files to begin with? (Something old live action films can't do.) They have actually been generating true 3D imagery for Viewmaster reels of their films long before the 3D movie revival.
Where were you in '77?
CP3S said:
xhonzi said:
I think Tolkien changed his mind as to what Middle Earth was betwixt the writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Goblin king, in the novel and all adaptations I've seen, seems to have just finished taking his afternoon tea when the party bursts in.
Tolkien definitely changed the nature of Middle Earth between the writing of the two works. Not really changed so much, as drastically grew and expanded upon it. The Hobbit was just a children's fairytale, while its sequel grew into a very large epic. In The Hobbit, the magic ring that makes you invisible was obviously just a fun little magical item. I remember really wishing I had a ring like that after first reading the book as a youngster. Of course, reading LOTR later my feelings toward the ring changed completely, and it no longer seemed like such a neat little item I wished I had.
Personally, I think the film did a great job of pulling The Hobbit into the universe of the LOTR films by feeling in the blanks and giving the whole thing a bit of a darker feel.
Still, as one of my friends pointed out, when you measure the escape from the goblins with the scene in the Mines of Moria from Fellowship, the contrast between the two films feel very severe. In The Hobbit, you never feel much concern for the escaping dwarves, you see them rolling around, falling great lengths, and bouncing around all over the place without any sign of injury. In Moria, you find yourself on the edge of your seat watching deadly arrow whizz past the heads of the fellowship, feeling real concern for the characters.
Yes, he did expand. But really, I'm convinced that the change in nature is more drastic than people realize. The Hobbit was published in 1937, while The Lord of the Rings trilogy was published in 1954. When the Hobbit was written, a fleshed out Middle Earth had not been as thoroughly devised. The former was geared towards children, the latter towards adults. And in reality, there was no master plan in place when The Hobbit was written. Unlike George Lucas, who obviously had things planned out from the very beginning, when the Hobbit was written, Tolkein had made vague references that were later drastically expanded. For instance, the idea of the Necromancer was simply that there was some powerful evil mage in a tower who got Gandalf's attention specifically so he would leave the party of dwarves, and we learned little more about him. Later that idea was turned into Sauron, but it was not initially so. Likewise with Gollum, who was merely a creepy character and an opportunity to get that handy ring which would change Bilbo's burglaring career. I've posted this before, but I find it so fascinating that I will again provide the link to the comparison between the two versions of The Hobbit's ch. 5: Riddles in the Dark. Gollum was not so malicious, nor the ring so overpoweringly addictive: Gollum gave it up willingly! Tolkein completely retconned the whole chapter and provided a reason for its difference in the forward to LOTR. Other aspects of the story changed as well, such as the existence of matches and clocks in the Hobbit, which later completely vanished. It's just so interesting to me to see the development of Middle Earth in the originator's mind, and I personally enjoyed how the film better tied the two trilogies together for moviegoers, while retaining the different flavor of the Hobbit quite well.
^Agreed. Insofar as the written works are concerned, there is a massive tonal difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jackson didn't dissolve that tonal difference entirely (which would've been disrespectful to the novel), but neither did he preserve it entirely (which would've created significant tonal "whiplash" between the two film trilogies). Instead, he "split the difference," which IMO is probably the best approach he could've taken.
Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!
CP3S said:
...the universe of the LOTR films by feeling in the blanks...
Eh?
darth_ender said:
Unlike George Lucas, who obviously had things planned out from the very beginning, when the Hobbit was written
Erm...?
Akwat Kbrana said:
Insofar as the written works are concerned, there is a massive tonal difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jackson didn't dissolve that tonal difference entirely (which would've been disrespectful to the novel), but neither did he preserve it entirely (which would've created significant tonal "whiplash" between the two film trilogies). Instead, he "split the difference," which IMO is probably the best approach he could've taken.
I don't know. I didn't know until yesterday that Tolkien was actually rewriting the entire book of The Hobbit to match The Lord of the Rings when he wrote that new chapter for The Hobbit. So Tolkien agreed that the story needed to be aggressively rewritten to match, and that didn't seem to him to be disrespectful to the original book. But apparently he never finished the rewrite because he had a hard time reconcilling the two and recognizing the new bits as "The Hobbit".
So whilst he wanted to rewrite it, the challenge was enough to make him give up.
Part of the rumour I heard was that Jackson & Co. had access to the partial rewrite (as far as I know, it's not publicly available) when formulating the new movies. It makes me wonder what parts of the movie come from there, especially Bilbo's reasoning with the trolls. But if he were rewriting it, why would he leave the silliness in?
At the end of the day, most of you seem to be satisfied with where the needle between 'Faithful to the 1937 book' and 'Faithful to Everything Else (LotR Books and Movies, etc.)' landed. I am not. As Awkat said, he split the difference... and I wish the difference had been split a little more to the one side. As it is, I find it frustrating.
*Note- quoted typos and oddly formed sentences posted for amusement only.
IT'S MY TRILOGY, AND I WANT IT NOW!
"[George Lucas] rebooted the franchise in 1997 without telling anyone." -skyjedi2005
"Yeah, well, George says a lot of things..." a young 1997 xhonzi on RASSM
"They're my movies." -George Lucas. 19 people won oscars for their work on Star Wars (1977) and George Lucas wasn't one of them.
My italicized "obviously" in the above quote was intended to convey sarcasm. Not sure that it worked now :(
Anyway, yes, I'd heard he had been at least planning for a rewrite, though I didn't know he'd made much progress. Interestingly, another thing I'd read was that he planned on changing all references to "goblins" in the Hobbit to "orcs," as they are supposed to be the same creatures. However, many have interpreted them to be smaller and less fearsome, given their more childish nature in the books. But initially the distinction is not so clear.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_(Middle-earth)#Orcs.2C_Goblins.2C_and_Uruks
I encourage you to read the books, xhonzi. You might enjoy the differences and the resulting approaches Jackson and Co. took to the different films. I think splitting it (as Kbrana said) was the right choice for Jackson, and the only childishness that really did bug me was the bird poop on Radagast.
Bit of trivia: Gandalf can't remember the names of the two blue wizards in the film. This is likely because their names were not completely consistent, and the only sources for their names are from incomplete stories. It was a joke based on the two different versions of their names.
Source: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Wizards
So Tolkien agreed that the story needed to be aggressively rewritten to match, and that didn't seem to him to be disrespectful to the original book.
If Tolkien had indeed aggressively re-written The Hobbit to bring it into conformity with The Lord of the Rings (as he began to do in 1960), I would judge that to be very disrespectful to the original novel indeed (assuming said re-writing also entailed suppression of the original, a la George Lucas). As the situation currently stands, Tolkien's partial rewrite in the second and third editions can be forgiven on the basis that the original text is still accessible, and he even found a way to incorporate both the original and revised versions into the Middle Earth "canon" (with the 1937 edition reflecting the events as told by Bilbo and the 1951/1966 editions reflecting the events as they "actually happened").
Furthermore, surely there is something of a difference between an artist aggressively adjusting his own work and a third-party adapter doing the same thing?
Bit of trivia: Gandalf can't remember the names of the two blue wizards in the film. This is likely because their names were not completely consistent, and the only sources for their names are from incomplete stories. It was a joke based on the two different versions of their names.
Interesting. I had assumed Gandalf's memory loss had something to do with Jackson & Co. not owning the rights to the names Pallando and Alatar (they only have the rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, including the Appendices; other of Tolkien's works on Middle Earth, like The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, are off limits).
Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!
Also: Today would have been J. R. R. Tolkien's 121st birthday (a decade older than Bilbo in Fellowship of the Ring). Truly a gifted and visionary man. Happy Tolkien day, everyone!
Every 27th customer will get a ball-peen hammer, free!
^Perhaps that is the reason for leaving out the names (and I admit that it is my own conjecture that arrived at my conclusion), but to me it seems they could have easily simply not even tried to allude to their names ("...and then there are the two blue wizards.") or could have easily secured the rights to use just those names. I like the thought that it was a bit of a joke because it made me laugh in the theater, but of course I could be wrong.
I'll also admit that my Tolkein knowledge is rather limited, as I only read the trilogy for the first time in the past year (and the Hobbit for the first time in more than a decade last October). Anything beyond that stems from my reading the LOTR wiki. You seem much more knowledgeable in all things Tolkeinesque, and maybe you should start a Middle Earth thread. I know I'd enjoy it, but I feel unworthy to start it ;)
