Yeah, the commercial failure of that movie is proof that people don't actually want good non-superhero films despite their protests otherwise. For my part I saw it and loved it.
Yeah, the commercial failure of that movie is proof that people don't actually want good non-superhero films despite their protests otherwise. For my part I saw it and loved it.
It happens all the time really. Like a lot of cool new IP's get put out there on tv and in the movies and no one sees them, but some spin off CSI/NCIS/Super Hero thing makes mega bucks.
Like on my sad network of choice. All their super hero shows are mega ratings getters, but Crazy Ex Girlfriend is probably getting its final season this year because no one watches it.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Yeah, the commercial failure of that movie is proof that people don't actually want good non-superhero films despite their protests otherwise. For my part I saw it and loved it.
It happens all the time really. Like a lot of cool new IP's get put out there on tv and in the movies and no one sees them, but some spin off CSI/NCIS/Super Hero thing makes mega bucks.
Like on my sad network of choice. All their super hero shows are mega ratings getters, but Crazy Ex Girlfriend is probably getting its final season this year because no one watches it.
The CW isn't the best network for predicting what will get axed or continue. Look at Supernatural, for example.
Supernatural is a poor example because it has this whole convention business thing that runs along churning out cash regardless of the low ratings.
The series will end eventually, but it will coincide with a decline in the convention revenue not just TV ratings.
Clearly, we need to have Crazy Ex Girlfriend conventions.
They can have it at West Covina!
You need an insane fanbase of girls with disposable income first.
ie - if you've ever wondered why romance outsells all other genres and paranormal romance outsells all other SFF, look at the success of Supernatural in spite of how bad the show is
You could pull it off. You would just have to TRY to pull it off. That's what's dissapointing -- I would rather them have tried to pull off the iconic look and kinda fail then just say 'fuck it' and remove it. That's just my opinion.
Completely removing an actor's eyes is a problem for, like, acting. Eyes are a big deal.
Dredd.
Civil War.
Deadpool.
That doesn't actually negate my point. Like, there's a reason superheroes/soldiers/space-whatevers/etc in movies constantly take off their masks/helmets/etc at the drop of a hat.
Sometimes you've got no choice but to deal with it. Sometimes, like with Dredd, it's the point. But it's something you avoid as much as you can. Because eyes are one of the most important things for an actor.
I wasn't trying to negate your point, which I agree with in general (that is, eyes are important).
I was listing movies that had found various ways to work around the covered-eyes problem very effectively.
It can absolutely be done, but yeah, it's harder.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Supernatural is a poor example because it has this whole convention business thing that runs along churning out cash regardless of the low ratings.
The series will end eventually, but it will coincide with a decline in the convention revenue not just TV ratings.
Clearly, we need to have Crazy Ex Girlfriend conventions.
They can have it at West Covina!
CALIFORNIA! WEST COVINAAAAAAAAA
Rachel Bloom actually showed up on Adam Ruins everything this week, it was the episode letting the cat out of the bag about Awards being bought and paid for bullshit trophies...
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Mechanic: Resurrection, good action movie in this dull year, does two good things for every stupid one, and sits in the higher levels of the Statham film power rankings.
Transporter was hiding away in Brazil after the last movie, giving up the assassin job, until peeps be showing up and harassing him to kill people again, yo! So he do what he do, and then runs off to Thailand, where he comes across Dark Angel, who he knows right off the back is trying to honeypot him and she spills the beans that's what she's supposed to do, because she was a soldier who went to Cambodia to create a children's orphanage and they threatened the kids. So Transporter has to do the job, which is set up by an assassin who came from the same assassin school he did, and kill three big name arms dealers, one of which is Agent K.
You know what you're getting here. It's a lower-to-middle budget action movie with some nice fight choreography, guns that have three times the clip capacity, and some bad CGI. The actual kills Statham has to perform are good, particularly the pool kill used in the trailer, as it seems like Statham did do the stunt, it just wasn't done on a pool overhanging a Sydney skyscraper because that's reserved for Tom Cruise money films, they just greenscreened it in the background. The plot acknowledges it being dumb because despite being set up Statham is still going to kill the guys (and fall in love a duh), and on top of some weird scene transitions that almost feel like CGI chapter openings in modern day videogames, they also do that thing of dropping big character history reveals in passing just to acknowledge it in ADR or what have you. And the film seems to not even try and deny that all the places it was filmed in, these are places with some super sweet tax credits/low cost of production values. It was also a movie that seemed to just be filmed in 1080p as opposed to everything being filmed in 4k these days. Usually projected films don't have the detail to really spot it, but there really was a difference here compared to all the other films I've seen in theaters this year.
Still, it was a Friday matinee, can't beat what it delivered, a 100 minute action movie with Statham being reliably good as always, Alba being bland and unbelievable but not outright bad like her other works, and Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Yeoh both being in the film for five minutes. This is the start of the dead season until oscar bait time later in the year, and it was worth a watch.
When I saw the title Mechanic: Resurrection, I actually thought it was a joke, as if they'd made some absurd sequel to that movie where Christian Bale turned himself into a skeleton.
+2
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Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
Gods Of Egypt is movie of the decade.
it is splendid
Oh brilliant
+2
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
They made a movie out of I Am Not a Serial Killer? That's awesome, I love that series. Now I'm super excited.
The limited release must be extremely limited, since I can't find any theaters in Chicago with it. It is available through Video On Demand as of today though, I saw it listed earlier.
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
Or even two movies.
But 3 was definitely a movie too far.
+6
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
Or even two movies.
But 3 was definitely a movie too far.
True, sad story:
Peter Jackson actually asked New Line if he could make two movies instead of three because by the time production was winding down on the second film he hadn't even prepped the Battle of Five Armies yet
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
Or even two movies.
But 3 was definitely a movie too far.
True, sad story:
Peter Jackson actually asked New Line if he could make two movies instead of three because by the time production was winding down on the second film he hadn't even prepped the Battle of Five Armies yet
Everything I hear about the production of those movies is just like "Oh, that's why they sucked".
+10
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
Or even two movies.
But 3 was definitely a movie too far.
True, sad story:
Peter Jackson actually asked New Line if he could make two movies instead of three because by the time production was winding down on the second film he hadn't even prepped the Battle of Five Armies yet
Everything I hear about the production of those movies is just like "Oh, that's why they sucked".
Yeah.
Once New Line threw Guillermo del Toro off the films, it all went to hell really, from a production standpoint.
"We have two release dates and 8 months of production already planned. All we need now is a script and six months of pre-production."
"Nah, screw it. Gotta hit that release date. Just wing this motherfucker."
Also I still think two movies was the way to go. There'stooo much for 1 movie and there's a good natural break point in the story between journey and adventure at the end of the journey. It just makes sense imo.
shryke on
+3
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
John Carter was great just as the books are great. You all need to stop slandering it.
The slog continues, but the council at Rivendell was really excellent. Cate Blanchett is so good at playing a Tolkien elf. She is believably immortal and inhuman (in a regal, beautiful, wise elf-ey way not like an eldritch horror or something).
You could pull it off. You would just have to TRY to pull it off. That's what's dissapointing -- I would rather them have tried to pull off the iconic look and kinda fail then just say 'fuck it' and remove it. That's just my opinion.
Completely removing an actor's eyes is a problem for, like, acting. Eyes are a big deal.
Deadpool and spidermans eyes were CGI'd to animate to emote, citing them is pretty much evidence for the post you quoted.edit: they constantly go inside Ironmans mask to fix this, I'm trying to think if anyone elses eyes are covered. Same with Iron Patriot. Ant Man? They go inside his helmet too in the same way I thought. I could be mistaken on that though. I think the only person in civil war this would apply to is Falcon? He has like sunglasses on but I dont think he gets much up close dialog/acting? I think he has like 2 lines in the whole film that could have benefited. "I hate you" and "I'm sorry"
Dredd is a walking stone, he doesn't need eyes because justice is blind but sees all. I'm joking and it worked here because seriously, that character basically doesnt emote except for pain and anger, and his mouth does enough for that.
Blade probably fits the mark, he wears glasses through a lot of scenes, but when hes wearing the glasses its usualyl 'go time' and he can still be pretty emotive with the rest of his face. He does a lot with his mouth, smiling, bearing teeth, grimmicing. But he has plenty of time without the glasses too. (I cant remember much from 3, but really we should all wipe that from our memories)
The Hobbit also had the disadvantage of following up a series where the novels had two very different tones, despite their intimate connection.
The Hobbit novel is more or less a traditional fairy tale with a simple arc and fairly undeveloped characters (and, no surprise there - fairy tales don't need deep characterization, they work on a much more elemental level - a lot of times the characters don't even have names). It's not afraid to be fun and even silly when it feels like it, and while everything gets more serious toward the end it all ends up in a nice storybook ending.
LOTR, on the other hand, is a fairly serious - sometimes even grim - epic in most of the traditional sense of that term (everything except being in verse, really). It's a rumination on war, corruption, humanity's shortsighted destruction of the natural world, and the way good intentions can lead to devastating consequences if not tempered with humility. It ends with the message that sometimes things change you, and after you've experienced those things you can never be the person you were before; likewise, all the while the world is changing alongside you, and the home you return to (if you return home) may not be the one you left. Even if some hypothetical reader knew nothing about when it was written or Tolkien as a person, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out it was written by a fairly devout Catholic literature professor who fought in WWI.*
A skilled adapter could probably have started with the Hobbit and worked toward LOTR fairly easily. Narratives raise the stakes and get serious all the time. But starting with LOTR and working backwards - making the Hobbit into a moody, meaning-laden epic - would have been extremely difficult no matter how much effort was put into it. It always would have been trying to put a round peg in a square hole, at least thematically speaking.
*Now that I think about it, I think you could make a fairly strong argument that the LOTR series is a more representative WWI/"Lost Generation" novel than A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises.
Yeah, the commercial failure of that movie is proof that people don't actually want good non-superhero films despite their protests otherwise. For my part I saw it and loved it.
It happens all the time really. Like a lot of cool new IP's get put out there on tv and in the movies and no one sees them, but some spin off CSI/NCIS/Super Hero thing makes mega bucks.
Like on my sad network of choice. All their super hero shows are mega ratings getters, but Crazy Ex Girlfriend is probably getting its final season this year because no one watches it.
good TV is often appreciated after the fact
I'd love for networks to start looking more long term with properties and structure things around more than just this week's ratings (which are hilariously bullshit anyway)
like you might put out a scifi series and ten years from now someone will binge it on GoogleNetflix and you get some revenue
I don't remember Laketown and the men of the Dale being quite this... dystopic.
I'm not really objecting, I mean, it's obvious they are paaaaaaaading the fuck out of this, but as padding goes they could have done worse. The cute dwarf and the elf lady thing seems completely made up too, but it's not bad. I mean, I do actually care about these characters.
Gandalf confronting Sauron directly is something that is neat to watch but at the same time it should never actually be shown. Tolkien was correct not to put anything like that into his novels. That is an unforced error, period.
-edit-
Finished Desolation of Smaug
As a cohesive movie it is a mess of disconnected scenes some of which are very cool but it has no real throughput at all. The dragon is well done. The dwarves fighting the dragon is dumb though and not really forgivable. Even if you are unfamiliar with the novel, the film telegraphs that Bard will be the one to kill the dragon with his special arrow so all the dwarves are doing is pissing Smaug off. So all the time spent showing that is pretty wasteful (and it's a long fight). A lot of the stuff in Laketown is straight filler or obvious set-up for the next film with zero payout in this one. The "expanded storyline" with Legolas and his friend was actually better than it had any right to be, it was the least annoying filler in the film though it was obviously still filler.
I find enough in the Hobbit movies to kinda, sorta like them in the end, and Battle of the Five Armies worked pretty well for me (with lowered expectations, mind you). However, I absolutely *love* the making-of videos on the Extended Edition disks, and for these already it's been worth it for me.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Posts
pleasepaypreacher.net
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Yeah, the commercial failure of that movie is proof that people don't actually want good non-superhero films despite their protests otherwise. For my part I saw it and loved it.
It happens all the time really. Like a lot of cool new IP's get put out there on tv and in the movies and no one sees them, but some spin off CSI/NCIS/Super Hero thing makes mega bucks.
Like on my sad network of choice. All their super hero shows are mega ratings getters, but Crazy Ex Girlfriend is probably getting its final season this year because no one watches it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The series will end eventually, but it will coincide with a decline in the convention revenue not just TV ratings.
They can have it at West Covina!
You need an insane fanbase of girls with disposable income first.
ie - if you've ever wondered why romance outsells all other genres and paranormal romance outsells all other SFF, look at the success of Supernatural in spite of how bad the show is
I wasn't trying to negate your point, which I agree with in general (that is, eyes are important).
I was listing movies that had found various ways to work around the covered-eyes problem very effectively.
It can absolutely be done, but yeah, it's harder.
CALIFORNIA! WEST COVINAAAAAAAAA
Rachel Bloom actually showed up on Adam Ruins everything this week, it was the episode letting the cat out of the bag about Awards being bought and paid for bullshit trophies...
pleasepaypreacher.net
Transporter was hiding away in Brazil after the last movie, giving up the assassin job, until peeps be showing up and harassing him to kill people again, yo! So he do what he do, and then runs off to Thailand, where he comes across Dark Angel, who he knows right off the back is trying to honeypot him and she spills the beans that's what she's supposed to do, because she was a soldier who went to Cambodia to create a children's orphanage and they threatened the kids. So Transporter has to do the job, which is set up by an assassin who came from the same assassin school he did, and kill three big name arms dealers, one of which is Agent K.
You know what you're getting here. It's a lower-to-middle budget action movie with some nice fight choreography, guns that have three times the clip capacity, and some bad CGI. The actual kills Statham has to perform are good, particularly the pool kill used in the trailer, as it seems like Statham did do the stunt, it just wasn't done on a pool overhanging a Sydney skyscraper because that's reserved for Tom Cruise money films, they just greenscreened it in the background. The plot acknowledges it being dumb because despite being set up Statham is still going to kill the guys (and fall in love a duh), and on top of some weird scene transitions that almost feel like CGI chapter openings in modern day videogames, they also do that thing of dropping big character history reveals in passing just to acknowledge it in ADR or what have you. And the film seems to not even try and deny that all the places it was filmed in, these are places with some super sweet tax credits/low cost of production values. It was also a movie that seemed to just be filmed in 1080p as opposed to everything being filmed in 4k these days. Usually projected films don't have the detail to really spot it, but there really was a difference here compared to all the other films I've seen in theaters this year.
Still, it was a Friday matinee, can't beat what it delivered, a 100 minute action movie with Statham being reliably good as always, Alba being bland and unbelievable but not outright bad like her other works, and Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Yeoh both being in the film for five minutes. This is the start of the dead season until oscar bait time later in the year, and it was worth a watch.
pleasepaypreacher.net
it is splendid
The limited release must be extremely limited, since I can't find any theaters in Chicago with it. It is available through Video On Demand as of today though, I saw it listed earlier.
It's like an hour in and they still haven't left Hobbiton. This is not a good movie.
you could always watch . . . um . . . something else
<.<
>.>
None of them are.
There are good moments in each but the overall product is disappointing.
>_>
I think if the studios had let Jackson make one movie, he'd have done fine. But they wanted those big piles of money from another trilogy. Which means padding, padding, padding.
Or even two movies.
But 3 was definitely a movie too far.
True, sad story:
Peter Jackson actually asked New Line if he could make two movies instead of three because by the time production was winding down on the second film he hadn't even prepped the Battle of Five Armies yet
Everything I hear about the production of those movies is just like "Oh, that's why they sucked".
Yeah.
Once New Line threw Guillermo del Toro off the films, it all went to hell really, from a production standpoint.
"We have two release dates and 8 months of production already planned. All we need now is a script and six months of pre-production."
"Nah, screw it. Gotta hit that release date. Just wing this motherfucker."
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Add me!
I think I disconnected my optic nerves rolling my fucking eyes so goddamn hard.
Tauriel was awesome until she turned into a rom com trope in the third movie.
Any movie where a character wears sunglasses
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Dredd is a walking stone, he doesn't need eyes because justice is blind but sees all. I'm joking and it worked here because seriously, that character basically doesnt emote except for pain and anger, and his mouth does enough for that.
Blade probably fits the mark, he wears glasses through a lot of scenes, but when hes wearing the glasses its usualyl 'go time' and he can still be pretty emotive with the rest of his face. He does a lot with his mouth, smiling, bearing teeth, grimmicing. But he has plenty of time without the glasses too. (I cant remember much from 3, but really we should all wipe that from our memories)
The Hobbit novel is more or less a traditional fairy tale with a simple arc and fairly undeveloped characters (and, no surprise there - fairy tales don't need deep characterization, they work on a much more elemental level - a lot of times the characters don't even have names). It's not afraid to be fun and even silly when it feels like it, and while everything gets more serious toward the end it all ends up in a nice storybook ending.
LOTR, on the other hand, is a fairly serious - sometimes even grim - epic in most of the traditional sense of that term (everything except being in verse, really). It's a rumination on war, corruption, humanity's shortsighted destruction of the natural world, and the way good intentions can lead to devastating consequences if not tempered with humility. It ends with the message that sometimes things change you, and after you've experienced those things you can never be the person you were before; likewise, all the while the world is changing alongside you, and the home you return to (if you return home) may not be the one you left. Even if some hypothetical reader knew nothing about when it was written or Tolkien as a person, it wouldn't be too hard to figure out it was written by a fairly devout Catholic literature professor who fought in WWI.*
A skilled adapter could probably have started with the Hobbit and worked toward LOTR fairly easily. Narratives raise the stakes and get serious all the time. But starting with LOTR and working backwards - making the Hobbit into a moody, meaning-laden epic - would have been extremely difficult no matter how much effort was put into it. It always would have been trying to put a round peg in a square hole, at least thematically speaking.
*Now that I think about it, I think you could make a fairly strong argument that the LOTR series is a more representative WWI/"Lost Generation" novel than A Farewell to Arms or The Sun Also Rises.
good TV is often appreciated after the fact
I'd love for networks to start looking more long term with properties and structure things around more than just this week's ratings (which are hilariously bullshit anyway)
like you might put out a scifi series and ten years from now someone will binge it on GoogleNetflix and you get some revenue
I'm not really objecting, I mean, it's obvious they are paaaaaaaading the fuck out of this, but as padding goes they could have done worse. The cute dwarf and the elf lady thing seems completely made up too, but it's not bad. I mean, I do actually care about these characters.
Gandalf confronting Sauron directly is something that is neat to watch but at the same time it should never actually be shown. Tolkien was correct not to put anything like that into his novels. That is an unforced error, period.
-edit-
Finished Desolation of Smaug
As a cohesive movie it is a mess of disconnected scenes some of which are very cool but it has no real throughput at all. The dragon is well done. The dwarves fighting the dragon is dumb though and not really forgivable. Even if you are unfamiliar with the novel, the film telegraphs that Bard will be the one to kill the dragon with his special arrow so all the dwarves are doing is pissing Smaug off. So all the time spent showing that is pretty wasteful (and it's a long fight). A lot of the stuff in Laketown is straight filler or obvious set-up for the next film with zero payout in this one. The "expanded storyline" with Legolas and his friend was actually better than it had any right to be, it was the least annoying filler in the film though it was obviously still filler.
The Hobbit Trilogy reviewed in 6 words.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods