Just got back from a sneak preview of Trance, and I felt like it was a movie that took far too many liberties in the service of what was ultimately a rather tepid crime drama with an under-utilized hypnotism motif.
Definitely don't go in expecting something along the lines of Inception, because the film's dream sequence are rather short and clearly delineated from the real world. Any uncertainty found in the story doesn't come from the question of what is real but rather from more mundane questions about the individual character's motives and loyalties. That makes for an engaging middle section, when the whole story is still cloaked in mystery, but it really hinders the climax by necessitating large blocks of expository dialogue to tie up every loose end while forcing the audience drastically to revise their impressions of the characters at a moment's notice.
Man I loved Drive. First movie in a while where Los Angeles was one of the main characters.
I also like Collateral for this reason. Tom Cruise's speech about LA and the thematic bookend at the end? That's basically my opinion of this place. Makes it even tougher for me to root against him.
It also captures the whole sodium-vapor, hazy twilight and palm trees ambience of nighttime in this city like no other.
Crap, I gotta see Collateral again.
I kinda love Collateral, though it feels like there's just something slight ... off. Like, I think maybe it's ending but it feels like there's something that just keeps it from being a classic. Still a good film. I love Cruise and Fox in it. The moment where Fox goes complete badass in the club is still one of the best scenes around.
Supposedly the T-rex scene discrepancy is because the break-out/knock off cliff events were supposed to be two separate scenes. I cannot for the life of me remember where I read that.
Supposedly the T-rex scene discrepancy is because the break-out/knock off cliff events were supposed to be two separate scenes. I cannot for the life of me remember where I read that.
I think it was something about the screenwriter realizing the continuity error of the scene but Spielberg overrulling her and keeping the scene as is.
I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!!!
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
The ending of Collateral is a bit ehh. I don't think, as some have argued, that it's that Foxx lives or gets the girl. It's just kind of drawn out and unnecessary. The climax of the movie is when he wigs out so hard that he scares Tom Cruise; everything afterwards is a coda, and could have been trimmed down a bit. I know they wanted to get that beat of Cruise on the train, but it takes a lot of moves to get him from a wrecked car to the train.
My favourite bit in Collateral is the one in the jazz club, where Mann and his actors manage the development of the scene, its tone and where the characters are at in terms of mood and attitude to near-perfection. Such a good scene. I also love the one with Bardem, but the jazz club is the one I love the film for.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I started watching Bully, and it is rough to watch. I know someone else in the thread mentioned it, but the only two emotions I've experienced while I'm watching it are sadness and rage (often both at once). There's this really telling scene where a school administrator attempts to get two kids to reconcile after an event that occurs off camera. One kid is hesitant to reach out his hand and shake the other student's hand but eventually does it reluctantly. The administrator admonishes him for not being forthcoming in trying to reconcile with the other student and says that he's just as bad as the other student who apparently apologized and didn't mean it. The student looks at her and says something along the lines of "I've never threatened to stab him, shoot him, or break his arm," and the administrator keeps on with her "you could be really good friends" routine. It's such a shame we can't reach through the television and scream at people who are dumber than the twelve year olds they're supposed to be watching.
goddamnit. my brother's father in law is getting rid of a ton dvds/bluray from his home theatre setup, like they brought back a huuuuuuuge bag full of discs and have stared sharing them out. classics both new and old, some still wrapped.
and the fuckers give me the first 3 twilight films on bluray, steelbook limited edition and everything.
shame in my collection. i don't know how this happened.
goddamnit. my brother's father in law is getting rid of a ton dvds/bluray from his home theatre setup, like they brought back a huuuuuuuge bag full of discs and have stared sharing them out. classics both new and old, some still wrapped.
and the fuckers give me the first 3 twilight films on bluray.
shame in my collection. i don't know how this happened.
Do you have any nieces or young female cousins?
Or have you ever wanted to find out what happens if you put a bluray in the microwave?
(Disclaimer: The third one is actually a tolerable movie, in that it has characterization and a plot!)
last time i watched collateral was last year, years and years after first watching it.
and i am blown away by all these actors showing up who i wasnt that aware of before. statham, ruffalo, bardem.
I really enjoy Collateral myself. I'm sure I knew who Stathan and Ruffalo were at that point, but I wasn't aware of Bardem until No Country for Old Men.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
Collateral makes me upset that Michael Mann doesn't make more movies like Collateral.
He's a huge squandering of talent, disappearing up his own ass as directors are wont to do.
I liked it but found the ending annoying. Though the tie in with Vincent's monologue about LA was cool, no one as good as Vincent was supposed to be would have gone out like that. It's much harder to be a dead eye marksmen than movies let on.
+2
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I liked it but found the ending annoying. Though the tie in with Vincent's monologue about LA was cool, no one as good as Vincent was supposed to be would have gone out like that. It's much harder to be a dead eye marksmen than movies let on.
It wasn't that Foxx became a marksman in 10 minutes (the best he could do when he was trying to kill Vincent was shoot his ear off); it was the light going out combined with the shape of the subway door/windows. Vincent instinctively went for his signature "two in the chest, one in the head" grouping, and the doors were metal down the middle so it stopped the shots. Foxx was shooting more blindly so he got some through the windows and managed to hit Vincent out of luck.
i have always wondered what happens to bluray discs in a microwave! problem solved.
(i may actually watch one of them first, morbid curiosity.)
Microwave the second one. It's the worst of the three.
We should just microwave Stephanie Meyer before she writes anything else.
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.
+1
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The Hobbit mini-review part II - An Unexpectedly Long Film [probably minor book spoilers ahead]
The hour or so we watched last night was more enjoyable than the first bit, in that stuff happened. The troll scene was amusing, the battle against the wargs and orcs was exciting and well-rendered. For what it is, it's at least fun to watch.
I'm noticing, though, that the movie is completely different from the book. And it's not that they added scenes or added characters or changed people's names or even wholesale added plot arcs (though they did all these things). It's that they took a story which was rather small and intimate - the story of a humble hobbit getting swept up in big events and trying to find his way through them, discovering his adventurous nature on the way - and turned it into a three-film epic that serves to establish everything that led to the events in LOTR.
What I always liked about The Hobbit, the book, was how innocuous it all was. It was basically a dozen dwarves trying to get their home back from the dragon, and on the way some stuff happens, and Bilbo has this scary bit in a cave and finds a cool magic ring that helps him escape. Dwarves kill dragon, the end, yay! And then in LOTR, it turns out all this minor stuff was important. That ring? That was the One Motherfucking Ring. That necromancer? Oh shits it's Sauron. That flaky wizard dude, Gandalf, who kept disappearing all the time? Yeah, that's cause he's out trying to save the world from the ultimate evil. And suddenly you realize this little, unassuming book was laying the ground for a huge, sweeping epic.
That's not what we're getting in The Hobbit, though. We're getting a huge, sweeping epic as the prequel to a huge, sweeping epic. We're getting the Star Wars prequels. Now, The Hobbit, thus far, is a much better movie than any of the Star Wars prequels, but I'd say that the film trilogy we're getting is about equally unnecessary. Just as we didn't need to see three films of Jedi running around with light sabers and smashing armies across the galaxy to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker and his fall from good, we don't need three films of sweeping panoramas and giant battles to tell the story of Bilbo Baggins. And I think it's sort of killing the personal charm that the story of Bilbo Baggins is supposed to have. The movie offers a lot of fun, but I don't think this is what the story was meant to be.
Tonight I'll try to finish it up.
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.
+3
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'll reply with what Peter Jackson said about the necessity of The Hobbit:
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
The thing that kind of cracks me up about The Hobbit and LOTR's relation is that everything gets this epic backstory, but Gandalf and Bilbo's magic super swords? "They found 'em in a cave. Moving on!"
The thing that kind of cracks me up about The Hobbit and LOTR's relation is that everything gets this epic backstory, but Gandalf and Bilbo's magic super swords? "They found 'em in a cave. Moving on!"
Those swords DO have epic backstories. They just don't involve Gandalf or Bilbo.
+1
Tiger BurningDig if you will, the pictureRegistered User, SolidSaints Tuberegular
The thing that kind of cracks me up about The Hobbit and LOTR's relation is that everything gets this epic backstory, but Gandalf and Bilbo's magic super swords? "They found 'em in a cave. Moving on!"
Those swords DO have epic backstories. They just don't involve Gandalf or Bilbo.
Well, Bilbo's sword doesn't have an epic backstory.
Finding those swords is pretty much the only thing in either the trilogy or the Hobbit that pulls me out. How the hell did those legendary swords make it into a random cave in the Trollshaws?
0
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
The thing that kind of cracks me up about The Hobbit and LOTR's relation is that everything gets this epic backstory, but Gandalf and Bilbo's magic super swords? "They found 'em in a cave. Moving on!"
Those swords DO have epic backstories. They just don't involve Gandalf or Bilbo.
Well, Bilbo's sword doesn't have an epic backstory.
Finding those swords is pretty much the only thing in either the trilogy or the Hobbit that pulls me out. How the hell did those legendary swords make it into a random cave in the Trollshaws?
Yeah, that cave was quite the hoard. Trolls obviously were unfamiliar with the street value of Gondolin smithwork.
The thing that kind of cracks me up about The Hobbit and LOTR's relation is that everything gets this epic backstory, but Gandalf and Bilbo's magic super swords? "They found 'em in a cave. Moving on!"
Those swords DO have epic backstories. They just don't involve Gandalf or Bilbo.
Well, Bilbo's sword doesn't have an epic backstory.
Finding those swords is pretty much the only thing in either the trilogy or the Hobbit that pulls me out. How the hell did those legendary swords make it into a random cave in the Trollshaws?
Yeah, that cave was quite the hoard. Trolls obviously were unfamiliar with the street value of Gondolin smithwork.
The Bree Market probably closed after sunset.
Tom, Bert, and Bill were just down on their luck merchants! They're the 99%, oppressed by the 1% and their Wizard lackey!
0
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Collateral makes me upset that Michael Mann doesn't make more movies like Collateral.
He's a huge squandering of talent, disappearing up his own ass as directors are wont to do.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. Heat was outstanding.
Of the two, it's easily my favorite.
+1
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I don't like to let my personal feelings of people taint my view of their work, but Mann has made a lot more frustratingly bad films than he has legitimately good films, and to top it off he's apparently a total asshole to work with, with many top-flight actors vowing never to work with him again after bad experiences.
He's nearly identical to David Fincher in that way, in that his potential so far far exceeds his product, and they both get lost in technical minutiae at the expense of making good film.
I'll reply with what Peter Jackson said about the necessity of The Hobbit:
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
Was it the studio's decision to make it 3 films long? Because if Jackson was basically told, "We're doing the Hobbit. We want there to be at least 3 films, because $$$$. You in?" then I understand that. Otherwise, it seems an odd choice for someone who says he didn't want to be doing it in the first place. Like, "Fuck, I don't want to do a goddamn book report, I hate reading. Fine, whatever, guess I'll do it on War and Peace."
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I'll reply with what Peter Jackson said about the necessity of The Hobbit:
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
Was it the studio's decision to make it 3 films long? Because if Jackson was basically told, "We're doing the Hobbit. We want there to be at least 3 films, because $$$$. You in?" then I understand that. Otherwise, it seems an odd choice for someone who says he didn't want to be doing it in the first place. Like, "Fuck, I don't want to do a goddamn book report, I hate reading. Fine, whatever, guess I'll do it on War and Peace."
Personally, I respect that.
One of my mottoes in life is "Fine, if I have to do it, then I'm going to do it RIGHT"
0
AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I'll reply with what Peter Jackson said about the necessity of The Hobbit:
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
Was it the studio's decision to make it 3 films long? Because if Jackson was basically told, "We're doing the Hobbit. We want there to be at least 3 films, because $$$$. You in?" then I understand that. Otherwise, it seems an odd choice for someone who says he didn't want to be doing it in the first place. Like, "Fuck, I don't want to do a goddamn book report, I hate reading. Fine, whatever, guess I'll do it on War and Peace."
I think Jackson commits wholly to projects once aboard, but it's clear that at times he is at the mercy of the moneymen (see: the whole Pellinor Fields thing).
I think the most plausible explanation was that Jackson was asking to run long with The Hobbit pts 1 and 2, and the studio probably just said, "Fuck it, we'll make three and be richer for it." Almost all directors shoot hours that get cut from the theatrical release, so Jackson probably had plenty of footage to pad out the running times with. As much as I like the EE versions of the LOTR films, the theatrical versions work just fine on their own.
I guess I'm in the minority camp that never really thought that the Hobbit could reasonably be shot as one film. I think AUJ is probably 20-30 minutes too long, but no way could you tell a satisfying tale in Jackson's Middle Earth in three hours or less. People point to the very good Rankin-Bass film as the example of how to do it, but no one with any understanding of cinema actually believes you could tell a live-action version of the story with that much spartan efficiency in that little of time.
0
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I'll reply with what Peter Jackson said about the necessity of The Hobbit:
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
Was it the studio's decision to make it 3 films long? Because if Jackson was basically told, "We're doing the Hobbit. We want there to be at least 3 films, because $$$$. You in?" then I understand that. Otherwise, it seems an odd choice for someone who says he didn't want to be doing it in the first place. Like, "Fuck, I don't want to do a goddamn book report, I hate reading. Fine, whatever, guess I'll do it on War and Peace."
I think Jackson commits wholly to projects once aboard, but it's clear that at times he is at the mercy of the moneymen (see: the whole Pellinor Fields thing).
I think the most plausible explanation was that Jackson was asking to run long with The Hobbit pts 1 and 2, and the studio probably just said, "Fuck it, we'll make three and be richer for it." Almost all directors shoot hours that get cut from the theatrical release, so Jackson probably had plenty of footage to pad out the running times with. As much as I like the EE versions of the LOTR films, the theatrical versions work just fine on their own.
Given that as recently as last July, Jackson was still intending to make two films, I think this is the most likely explanation.
Posts
Definitely don't go in expecting something along the lines of Inception, because the film's dream sequence are rather short and clearly delineated from the real world. Any uncertainty found in the story doesn't come from the question of what is real but rather from more mundane questions about the individual character's motives and loyalties. That makes for an engaging middle section, when the whole story is still cloaked in mystery, but it really hinders the climax by necessitating large blocks of expository dialogue to tie up every loose end while forcing the audience drastically to revise their impressions of the characters at a moment's notice.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I kinda love Collateral, though it feels like there's just something slight ... off. Like, I think maybe it's ending but it feels like there's something that just keeps it from being a classic. Still a good film. I love Cruise and Fox in it. The moment where Fox goes complete badass in the club is still one of the best scenes around.
I think it was something about the screenwriter realizing the continuity error of the scene but Spielberg overrulling her and keeping the scene as is.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
and the fuckers give me the first 3 twilight films on bluray, steelbook limited edition and everything.
shame in my collection. i don't know how this happened.
Do you have any nieces or young female cousins?
Or have you ever wanted to find out what happens if you put a bluray in the microwave?
(Disclaimer: The third one is actually a tolerable movie, in that it has characterization and a plot!)
(i may actually watch one of them first, morbid curiosity.)
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Microwave the second one. It's the worst of the three.
and i am blown away by all these actors showing up who i wasnt that aware of before. statham, ruffalo, bardem.
I really enjoy Collateral myself. I'm sure I knew who Stathan and Ruffalo were at that point, but I wasn't aware of Bardem until No Country for Old Men.
He's a huge squandering of talent, disappearing up his own ass as directors are wont to do.
It wasn't that Foxx became a marksman in 10 minutes (the best he could do when he was trying to kill Vincent was shoot his ear off); it was the light going out combined with the shape of the subway door/windows. Vincent instinctively went for his signature "two in the chest, one in the head" grouping, and the doors were metal down the middle so it stopped the shots. Foxx was shooting more blindly so he got some through the windows and managed to hit Vincent out of luck.
We should just microwave Stephanie Meyer before she writes anything else.
I love watching interviews with her. She so oblivious to herself and literature and basically everything she stands as a mockery of.
It makes my decision to remain lethargic and waste my potential seem more and more like the right thing to do.
The hour or so we watched last night was more enjoyable than the first bit, in that stuff happened. The troll scene was amusing, the battle against the wargs and orcs was exciting and well-rendered. For what it is, it's at least fun to watch.
I'm noticing, though, that the movie is completely different from the book. And it's not that they added scenes or added characters or changed people's names or even wholesale added plot arcs (though they did all these things). It's that they took a story which was rather small and intimate - the story of a humble hobbit getting swept up in big events and trying to find his way through them, discovering his adventurous nature on the way - and turned it into a three-film epic that serves to establish everything that led to the events in LOTR.
What I always liked about The Hobbit, the book, was how innocuous it all was. It was basically a dozen dwarves trying to get their home back from the dragon, and on the way some stuff happens, and Bilbo has this scary bit in a cave and finds a cool magic ring that helps him escape. Dwarves kill dragon, the end, yay! And then in LOTR, it turns out all this minor stuff was important. That ring? That was the One Motherfucking Ring. That necromancer? Oh shits it's Sauron. That flaky wizard dude, Gandalf, who kept disappearing all the time? Yeah, that's cause he's out trying to save the world from the ultimate evil. And suddenly you realize this little, unassuming book was laying the ground for a huge, sweeping epic.
That's not what we're getting in The Hobbit, though. We're getting a huge, sweeping epic as the prequel to a huge, sweeping epic. We're getting the Star Wars prequels. Now, The Hobbit, thus far, is a much better movie than any of the Star Wars prequels, but I'd say that the film trilogy we're getting is about equally unnecessary. Just as we didn't need to see three films of Jedi running around with light sabers and smashing armies across the galaxy to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker and his fall from good, we don't need three films of sweeping panoramas and giant battles to tell the story of Bilbo Baggins. And I think it's sort of killing the personal charm that the story of Bilbo Baggins is supposed to have. The movie offers a lot of fun, but I don't think this is what the story was meant to be.
Tonight I'll try to finish it up.
"I didn't really want to make it, but I didn't want anyone else to make it, and it was going to be made either way."
Jackson is remarkably candid for a director when it comes to problems with his films and I love it. He thinks the ghost army at Pellinor Fields is just as dumb as the rest of us do.
Those swords DO have epic backstories. They just don't involve Gandalf or Bilbo.
Well, Bilbo's sword doesn't have an epic backstory.
Finding those swords is pretty much the only thing in either the trilogy or the Hobbit that pulls me out. How the hell did those legendary swords make it into a random cave in the Trollshaws?
Yeah, that cave was quite the hoard. Trolls obviously were unfamiliar with the street value of Gondolin smithwork.
The Bree Market probably closed after sunset.
Tom, Bert, and Bill were just down on their luck merchants! They're the 99%, oppressed by the 1% and their Wizard lackey!
Yeah, it's unfortunate. Heat was outstanding.
Of the two, it's easily my favorite.
He's nearly identical to David Fincher in that way, in that his potential so far far exceeds his product, and they both get lost in technical minutiae at the expense of making good film.
Which reminds me: I still haven't seen Last of the Mohicans, even though it's been on my DVD pile forever... Should finally watch it.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Was it the studio's decision to make it 3 films long? Because if Jackson was basically told, "We're doing the Hobbit. We want there to be at least 3 films, because $$$$. You in?" then I understand that. Otherwise, it seems an odd choice for someone who says he didn't want to be doing it in the first place. Like, "Fuck, I don't want to do a goddamn book report, I hate reading. Fine, whatever, guess I'll do it on War and Peace."
Personally, I respect that.
One of my mottoes in life is "Fine, if I have to do it, then I'm going to do it RIGHT"
I think Jackson commits wholly to projects once aboard, but it's clear that at times he is at the mercy of the moneymen (see: the whole Pellinor Fields thing).
I think the most plausible explanation was that Jackson was asking to run long with The Hobbit pts 1 and 2, and the studio probably just said, "Fuck it, we'll make three and be richer for it." Almost all directors shoot hours that get cut from the theatrical release, so Jackson probably had plenty of footage to pad out the running times with. As much as I like the EE versions of the LOTR films, the theatrical versions work just fine on their own.
I guess I'm in the minority camp that never really thought that the Hobbit could reasonably be shot as one film. I think AUJ is probably 20-30 minutes too long, but no way could you tell a satisfying tale in Jackson's Middle Earth in three hours or less. People point to the very good Rankin-Bass film as the example of how to do it, but no one with any understanding of cinema actually believes you could tell a live-action version of the story with that much spartan efficiency in that little of time.
Given that as recently as last July, Jackson was still intending to make two films, I think this is the most likely explanation.