Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, and The Martian are all excellent in 3D, and the 3D enhanced the experiences.
+4
Options
TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
The Legend of Tarzan (HBO) is a disappointing movie. A bland, boring movie, but it isn't as bad as I expected. A sub-par checklist of what studios try and make for a worldwide audience that gave everything away in the trailers. After watching I felt there is a need for a modern Tarzan movie, it's just not what they made here. I just kept thinking about The Man in the Iron Mask in terms of a sequel/return to classical literary characters as how to do it right.
Tarzan is in London and he's asked to go back to the Congo to see all that Belgium has done to make the place a great colony, because what gives greater approval for first world investment other than the king of the jungle's thumbs up? He doesn't want to because Harley Quinn recently miscarried but she wants to go back too because it was her home, so they go. But shock! Hans Landa is the evil belgian who is bringing back the slave trade and working with an evil tribe whose warlord has a vendetta against Tarzan. Nick Fury knows about what's going on in Belgium and tags along as Tarzan's smart aleck sidekick who feels like he made a pitstop in 1975.
The movie thinks it's a lot smarter than it really is, trying to throw in way too many worn out cliches and tropes of films, especially big budget ones. It wants to have a environmentalist noble savage are awesome western civilization is bad religion is bad message but can't pin down any of the major arguments it wants to make. If the point being made is told well you can put up with a lot of arguments, but it never does so here, so everything feels like a student who just took sociology 101 looking over the script and throwing in things they think is really insightful or deep even though it was done in a later season of Home Improvement. You know, JTT's last season when he got really annoying as the preachy contrarian son? There is a catholic priest sex abuse jab thrown out of the blue so randomly it almost feels like a dare that someone got a hundred bucks by slipping into the rewrite pages.
Another problem the film has is not having any interesting characters. Jackson comes the closest as audience cypher, an ex-slave American soldier who fought in the Civil War but he seems like he might not have actually been in the original script the way he's so smart alecky and out of place for comic buddy cop banter. He's severely out of place in both mannerisms and dialogue, but it's at least something to try and pull you into the bland story. Waltz is doing this for a paycheck, there seems to be no difference in this and how he did Spectre, he just plays himself. Skaaaaaaargard is adequate as Tarzan, never truly selling the role but not being a hindrance. He has a hard time selling action hero, and carries himself not like a man who has gone from savage to noble but more like he hates being in clothes that are way too tight fitting for him, even excluding him getting jacked for the role. Robbie is not good, in part because she's sort of phoning it in with an American accent that isn't from Jersey like her other characters so it slips quite a bit, particularly when she says the name of the main bad guy which has an Aussie detecting "o" sound in it, but also because the Jane character never seems to know what she's supposed to be. The only mandate seems to have been "no damsel in distress," not out of any real reason other than they were scared as fuck someone online would rake them across the coals in a twitter rant. So you have her character be all these defiant headstrong traits who is the greatest white hope ever to exist ever ever. Her being an english teacher works well as the through-line to connect Tarzan with the real world, but they can't stop there. She becomes much more Sheena/Shanna than Jane, and the latter only works so well because Ka-Zar isn't completely oblivious to the modern world.
It also doesn't look like it was filmed in Africa, or the actual jungle, just some place with greens in Europe and they planted some palms and banana trees in the foreground (wikipedia says it was filmed in England). This is not only apparent in bland establishing shots of Africa that shows like Top Gear do waaaay better, but also in how much CGI the film utilizes later on in the film. There is a scene that involves running on trees and swinging on vines that is just bad in terms of even looking believable, you can see how they were told to just run around on a greenscreen while the camera moves around and 180's and swipes to another person running. I haven't seen the movies this director has made (David Yates, he did the last bunch of Harry Potter movies), but he seems out of place here, insisting all the time on these extreme close ups of every small time character in a bad callback old cinema, choosing at some points to unnecessarily go Michael Bay with 360 camera work to make you pay attention to exposition, and then forcing in some bad out of place humor.
It's not all bad, though. The parts I thought were going to suck, the flashbacks, are actually the best part, seeing a feral Tarzan and how he acts with his gorilla mother and brother and the leader Harambe gorilla who really doesn't like Tarzan, and even his first interactions with Jane and tribesman. And how Tarzan interacts with the animals has a sense of care and craft that didn't translate into all the other parts of the film. These at best make up 25 minutes out of a nearly two hour film, which leaves bland fighting, bad CGI, and predictable story.
I've never had an amazing experience with 3D in theater. It always is either bad or just seems like crisper resolution. Might be my own vision causing trouble or something. But at home on my 3D set I've really enjoyed most 3D movies I've tried on it. Better effect at home might be just down to me setting it up all just right but it works well there.
I watched Tarzan in theatres, and it was definitely a solid C grade. It was not a bad film, but nothing about it really stood out. The plot wasn't great, the actors didn't elevate the material, the CG was okay.
The two things that I really remember were Jane's attempt at a sick burn on the villain and the Tarzan yells, which I thought were good, but not anything like the classic version.
+1
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Hey everybody, have you heard about a movie called Prometheus?!?
I tried to run away from Prometheus, but it was rolling towards me and for some reason I couldn't just run right or left.
I died. :sad:
But the crew in that movie was still smarter than the protagonist of A Cure for Wellness.
Spoil it for me because I don't believe anyone could be that dumb.
You asked for it. (major spoilers for A Cure for Wellness)
Lockheart goes to the mountain retreat to collect the CEO of his company. Everyone is going on and on about the special water from their aquifer. He is drinking it for the first time, and he finds a tiny hatchling eel in his glass. He's like, "that's weird," then he squishes it and keeps drinking. Even after he sees grown eels fall out of a dead cow that had been drinking the water, he doesn't refuse to drink the stuff. Eventually it occurs to him that maybe the people are losing their teeth because the water isn't keeping them hydrated properly. Maybe it's the eels though?
He gets into an accident when he tried to leave the retreat the first time, right? Wakes up with a full-leg cast. Spends half the movie crutching around. Gets to the third act and goes a bit nuts; he cuts his cast off with some broken glass. His leg was never broken. Like, he kept his weight off it and was fastidiously careful the whole time; they specifically never use painkillers at the retreat, because it "interferes with the treatment." So it never occurred to him why his leg didn't hurt? Maybe because he wasn't injured?
Seriously, Lockheart is dumber than a roll of pennies. The Prometheus crew were morons, it is true, but Lockheart makes them look like seasoned campaigners.
So being a bit of a completionist, if I find a director who makes more than a couple films I think are great, I like to see everything they've made. I've done this with a couple dozen filmmakers I appreciate and I usually slow-roll it over the process of a year or so. Anyhow, I've seen all of Luis Bunuel's features now.
Not the hugest of fans; I think a number of his later European efforts aren't the most compelling in their satire/critique, but still, the guy has some really excellent flicks.
My 10 favorites:
1. El
2. The Exterminating Angel
3. Nazarin
4. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
5. The Young One
6. Los Olvidados
7. Illusion Travels by Streetcar
8. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
9. Ascent to Heaven
10. Susana
Watched Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a Werner Herzog documentary on a German-American US air force pilot who is shot down over Laos and taken as a POW. Pretty powerful, also hard to watch. The guy reenacts some of what he went through on film, which is crazy considering how brutal it was.
0
Options
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Watched Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a Werner Herzog documentary on a German-American US air force pilot who is shot down over Laos and taken as a POW. Pretty powerful, also hard to watch. The guy reenacts some of what he went through on film, which is crazy considering how brutal it was.
Herzog also directed the dramatic retelling, Rescue Dawn, starting Christian Bale
Watched Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a Werner Herzog documentary on a German-American US air force pilot who is shot down over Laos and taken as a POW. Pretty powerful, also hard to watch. The guy reenacts some of what he went through on film, which is crazy considering how brutal it was.
Herzog also directed the dramatic retelling, Rescue Dawn, starting Christian Bale
It's fucking harrowing
That movie was fucking draining.
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
+3
Options
AbsoluteZeroThe new film by Quentin KoopantinoRegistered Userregular
I love 3D when it's done well. But it matters very little, 3D is on the way out. TV manufacturers are notably dropping the feature. None of LG's 2017 OLED lineup has it, for instance. Makes me sad though I know I'm in the minority.
I've never had an amazing experience with 3D in theater. It always is either bad or just seems like crisper resolution. Might be my own vision causing trouble or something. But at home on my 3D set I've really enjoyed most 3D movies I've tried on it. Better effect at home might be just down to me setting it up all just right but it works well there.
I thought the 3D for Avatar was great. I actually went and saw it twice because of that and I like Sci Fi (even if it's just a Sci Fi retelling of Dances with Wolves).
I just got out of an advanced screening of Get Out.
It's criminal that this film is being relegated to a February release. Jordan Peele has taken a concept that sounds solid on the surface - white girl brings black boyfriend home to meet parents, but the black "help" there seem eerily off - and dives deeper, creating a tightly-wound thriller that is full of surprises even for genre-savvy folks. The characters in the film are all aware of stereotypes, and they want desperately to prove them wrong, but as the film progresses we find that stereotypes aren't the real threat - it's where you have convinced yourself that because you are aware of these stereotypes and abhor them, because you admire people different than yourself, how could you possibly be racist? This is a more sinister, subliminal kind of racism, where actions are justified as "what's best" in the same attitude as the overtly racist people who these people would loudly condemn... but it's different because you're a good person. But I have plunged into an examination of the film's subtext without giving a detailed account of the film itself. Can I be forgiven for that? Films of this nature are best seen with as little fore-knowledge as possible. (Don't watch the trailer.) Believe me though, this is a film that's destined to be a cult-classic - unless Peele keeps delivering films of this caliber.
Should you have picked one of the posts to put on a cross posting disclaimer? I dunno
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
When he gets weird it's more casual and subtle than Keegan Michael Key, who usually Springs for a more manic and wired persona. I think that would translate well to horror.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I very rarely advocate for 3D, and this is no change from that
regular is just fine
I've never yet seen a movie in 3D that made me think this "Yes, this was worth it. This was better then seeing it normally."
Prometheus
Dredd
Umm...
Prometheus again?
(Dredd was an interesting case, because I didn't care for the movie that much, but the 3D was pretty great, and it wound up being a movie that was ONLY worth my while because of the 3D.)
ElJeffe on
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.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I rewatched Snowpiercer over the weekend and enjoyed it considerably better the second time round. Obviously it doesn't work if you think about it in realistic terms, but as a stylised sort of Terry-Gilliam-meets-China-Miéville scenario with a decidedly comic-book slant, I think it is made tremendously well. It loses steam (no train-related pun intended) towards the end, but I love the film's sheer inventiveness.
It was sad, though, to see John Hurt for the first time after his death.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
+2
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I watched The Proposition the other day and John Hurt is electric in it as this drunk, racist bounty hunter. It's so good.
Avatar was irritatingly mundane in 3D. There were one or two shots that were excellent, but overall making a flower pop out in 3D isn't getting me excited for the new technology.
I'd be lying if I said that Avatar wasn't a great ride in 3D - but that's all it was. The two films I'd be most curious to see in 3D are Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Wim Wenders' Pina. I'm kinda curious about Godard's Goodbye to Language, but I've yet to see a Godard I actually enjoyed.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
0
Options
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Have you seen Breathless, Contempt, Pierret le Fou? Those are all pretty enjoyable.
Posts
Lego: Batman - see it in 3d or regular?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I very rarely advocate for 3D, and this is no change from that
regular is just fine
It think there's a decent chance The Batman may not happen at all, and I tend to think that in that event, the entire DCMU could fold
So far in three films, he's the only character people kinda halfway like
I tried to run away from Prometheus, but it was rolling towards me and for some reason I couldn't just run right or left.
I died. :sad:
But the crew in that movie was still smarter than the protagonist of A Cure for Wellness.
Spoil it for me because I don't believe anyone could be that dumb.
I've never yet seen a movie in 3D that made me think this "Yes, this was worth it. This was better then seeing it normally."
Dr Strange 3D was trippy as shit
Everything else is debatable.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Tarzan is in London and he's asked to go back to the Congo to see all that Belgium has done to make the place a great colony, because what gives greater approval for first world investment other than the king of the jungle's thumbs up? He doesn't want to because Harley Quinn recently miscarried but she wants to go back too because it was her home, so they go. But shock! Hans Landa is the evil belgian who is bringing back the slave trade and working with an evil tribe whose warlord has a vendetta against Tarzan. Nick Fury knows about what's going on in Belgium and tags along as Tarzan's smart aleck sidekick who feels like he made a pitstop in 1975.
The movie thinks it's a lot smarter than it really is, trying to throw in way too many worn out cliches and tropes of films, especially big budget ones. It wants to have a environmentalist noble savage are awesome western civilization is bad religion is bad message but can't pin down any of the major arguments it wants to make. If the point being made is told well you can put up with a lot of arguments, but it never does so here, so everything feels like a student who just took sociology 101 looking over the script and throwing in things they think is really insightful or deep even though it was done in a later season of Home Improvement. You know, JTT's last season when he got really annoying as the preachy contrarian son? There is a catholic priest sex abuse jab thrown out of the blue so randomly it almost feels like a dare that someone got a hundred bucks by slipping into the rewrite pages.
Another problem the film has is not having any interesting characters. Jackson comes the closest as audience cypher, an ex-slave American soldier who fought in the Civil War but he seems like he might not have actually been in the original script the way he's so smart alecky and out of place for comic buddy cop banter. He's severely out of place in both mannerisms and dialogue, but it's at least something to try and pull you into the bland story. Waltz is doing this for a paycheck, there seems to be no difference in this and how he did Spectre, he just plays himself. Skaaaaaaargard is adequate as Tarzan, never truly selling the role but not being a hindrance. He has a hard time selling action hero, and carries himself not like a man who has gone from savage to noble but more like he hates being in clothes that are way too tight fitting for him, even excluding him getting jacked for the role. Robbie is not good, in part because she's sort of phoning it in with an American accent that isn't from Jersey like her other characters so it slips quite a bit, particularly when she says the name of the main bad guy which has an Aussie detecting "o" sound in it, but also because the Jane character never seems to know what she's supposed to be. The only mandate seems to have been "no damsel in distress," not out of any real reason other than they were scared as fuck someone online would rake them across the coals in a twitter rant. So you have her character be all these defiant headstrong traits who is the greatest white hope ever to exist ever ever. Her being an english teacher works well as the through-line to connect Tarzan with the real world, but they can't stop there. She becomes much more Sheena/Shanna than Jane, and the latter only works so well because Ka-Zar isn't completely oblivious to the modern world.
It also doesn't look like it was filmed in Africa, or the actual jungle, just some place with greens in Europe and they planted some palms and banana trees in the foreground (wikipedia says it was filmed in England). This is not only apparent in bland establishing shots of Africa that shows like Top Gear do waaaay better, but also in how much CGI the film utilizes later on in the film. There is a scene that involves running on trees and swinging on vines that is just bad in terms of even looking believable, you can see how they were told to just run around on a greenscreen while the camera moves around and 180's and swipes to another person running. I haven't seen the movies this director has made (David Yates, he did the last bunch of Harry Potter movies), but he seems out of place here, insisting all the time on these extreme close ups of every small time character in a bad callback old cinema, choosing at some points to unnecessarily go Michael Bay with 360 camera work to make you pay attention to exposition, and then forcing in some bad out of place humor.
It's not all bad, though. The parts I thought were going to suck, the flashbacks, are actually the best part, seeing a feral Tarzan and how he acts with his gorilla mother and brother and the leader Harambe gorilla who really doesn't like Tarzan, and even his first interactions with Jane and tribesman. And how Tarzan interacts with the animals has a sense of care and craft that didn't translate into all the other parts of the film. These at best make up 25 minutes out of a nearly two hour film, which leaves bland fighting, bad CGI, and predictable story.
The two things that I really remember were Jane's attempt at a sick burn on the villain and the Tarzan yells, which I thought were good, but not anything like the classic version.
Because legos are inanimate fucking objects
Keep up
You asked for it. (major spoilers for A Cure for Wellness)
He gets into an accident when he tried to leave the retreat the first time, right? Wakes up with a full-leg cast. Spends half the movie crutching around. Gets to the third act and goes a bit nuts; he cuts his cast off with some broken glass. His leg was never broken. Like, he kept his weight off it and was fastidiously careful the whole time; they specifically never use painkillers at the retreat, because it "interferes with the treatment." So it never occurred to him why his leg didn't hurt? Maybe because he wasn't injured?
Seriously, Lockheart is dumber than a roll of pennies. The Prometheus crew were morons, it is true, but Lockheart makes them look like seasoned campaigners.
Not the hugest of fans; I think a number of his later European efforts aren't the most compelling in their satire/critique, but still, the guy has some really excellent flicks.
My 10 favorites:
1. El
2. The Exterminating Angel
3. Nazarin
4. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
5. The Young One
6. Los Olvidados
7. Illusion Travels by Streetcar
8. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
9. Ascent to Heaven
10. Susana
Herzog also directed the dramatic retelling, Rescue Dawn, starting Christian Bale
It's fucking harrowing
That movie was fucking draining.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
I thought the 3D for Avatar was great. I actually went and saw it twice because of that and I like Sci Fi (even if it's just a Sci Fi retelling of Dances with Wolves).
If they were genre savvy the movie would last about 10 minutes.
It's criminal that this film is being relegated to a February release. Jordan Peele has taken a concept that sounds solid on the surface - white girl brings black boyfriend home to meet parents, but the black "help" there seem eerily off - and dives deeper, creating a tightly-wound thriller that is full of surprises even for genre-savvy folks. The characters in the film are all aware of stereotypes, and they want desperately to prove them wrong, but as the film progresses we find that stereotypes aren't the real threat - it's where you have convinced yourself that because you are aware of these stereotypes and abhor them, because you admire people different than yourself, how could you possibly be racist? This is a more sinister, subliminal kind of racism, where actions are justified as "what's best" in the same attitude as the overtly racist people who these people would loudly condemn... but it's different because you're a good person. But I have plunged into an examination of the film's subtext without giving a detailed account of the film itself. Can I be forgiven for that? Films of this nature are best seen with as little fore-knowledge as possible. (Don't watch the trailer.) Believe me though, this is a film that's destined to be a cult-classic - unless Peele keeps delivering films of this caliber.
Go see it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
No.
When he gets weird it's more casual and subtle than Keegan Michael Key, who usually Springs for a more manic and wired persona. I think that would translate well to horror.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Prometheus
Dredd
Umm...
Prometheus again?
(Dredd was an interesting case, because I didn't care for the movie that much, but the 3D was pretty great, and it wound up being a movie that was ONLY worth my while because of the 3D.)
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It was sad, though, to see John Hurt for the first time after his death.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods