Remember to post spoiler warnings, please!
Continued rather belatedly from Movies, v.2013.
The creation of this thread has absolutely nothing to do with bookgirl_me just having seen “The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies”.
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
Guys. I went on an obscure-Disney-movie marathon last night because I have finals and am a useful person. And my conclusion is this: Treasure Planet is a ridiculously amazing movie and everybody needs to watch it immediately.
(Also first post woo? Sorry it has nothing to do with Tolkien…)
YYYYYEEEEESSSSSSS I LOVE THAT MOVIE SO MUCH
it is definitely in my top 3 fav Disney movies.
Yes, Treasure Planet is amazing and incredibly underrated.
YESYESYES!
Oh I adore Treasure Planet! It’s actually my favorite Disney movie. And I really love the soundtrack too…
Cerulean saw The Hobbit: BoftFA yesterday! SPOILERS AHOY SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS LALALALALA SPOILERS ON A JOURNEY SPOILERS ON A MOUNTAIN SPOILERS IN A BATTLE SPOILERS WHEE
Liked:
-GALADRIEL MY QUEEN
-Clothes
-Rams + pigs + that ridiculous elk
-Thorin’s death scene
-The women of Laketown going to battle
-Music
-Scenery
-The bits when anyone actually got to act were good. It was mostly fighting
-Very good fighting but too much of it
-That bit when Legolas was climbing the falling rock ELVES, MAN
-The orcs’ cool signal device!
-Bilbo coming home again
-Lobelia and the spoons!
Didn’t like:
-“He is called Strider. His true name you will have to discover for yourself.” Cracked me up. Dude has SO MANY names. BUT Aragorn should only be ten-eleven years old during The Hobbit and soooo. I’d’ve preferred seeing little Estel when we were at Rivendell.
-Alfred’s bits
-Esp. the gendered clothing jokes
-Some clunky dialogue: “[your death] can be arranged!”; “why does it hurt so much?” “because it was real” (though bless ’em, they were trying to make that bit work)
-Not letting Thranduil part with everyone on friendly terms, as he did in the book, was a wasted opportunity IMO. Lee Pace is a fantastic actor and could easily have kept Thrandy’s lofty demeanor while managing to be likeable, and probably even kinda a sweetie pie. But his “lol” face at Bard when Gandalf showed up was really great. I. Like Lee Pace a bunch. So.
-Still so bored by the attempt at a love triangle. Just let Leggy and Tau be friends who hang out and help each other and roll their eyes at his dad.
SPOILERS AHOY SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS LALALALALA SPOILERS ON A JOURNEY SPOILERS ON A MOUNTAIN SPOILERS IN A BATTLE SPOILERS WHEE PLUS RIPPING OFF CP’S LIST FORMAT
I really liked:
-All the details… they put so much love into the clothes, the sets- Laketown is amazing.
-SMAUG
-I love everything about how they did the mountain, the way the gold floor comes alive under Thorin dragon-style
-Lobelia
-Galadriel is the best.
-I dunno, I found the “not all men are brave enough to wear a corset!” pretty funny.
Some dislikes:
-Legolas’ fight scenes were really pushing it, to the point where it just seemed ridiculous
-For some reason, I thought that Tauriel was Legolas’ girlfriend or something and completely forgot that she was so in love with Kili or whatever (I figured it out by the time the death scene rolled around). It kinda annoyed me because I’d hoped that if they go to the lengths to put an extra female character in, they could at least bother to give her a bit more plot that. I know that characters like Eowyn or Galadriel are hard to live up too, but still… They could’ve just cut her out and made this (and the previous movie) shorter and less boring. Though I have to give props to the actress- she really tried to make it work.
-The older daughter of important Laketown guy who just screams annoyingly and is utterly useless in every way while her kid brother saves the day. She’s much taller than her brother and certainly much stronger by the way she manages to haul kid sister around. But no, she can’t even throw a rock to save or own skin or get offed early in the movie to stop annoying me.
-Somehow Thorin’s greed plot was wrapped up so quickly… I really liked the beginning with him and Bilbo, and would’ve preferred a bit less fighting (it was well done, just too copious) and more finding a less sudden way to overcome the greed.
SPOILERS GODZILLA I GUESS EXCEPT THE THINGS HERE ARE PRETTY PREDICTABLE BUT ANYWAY SPOILERS GODZILLA THAT I WATCHED OVER THE WEEKEND AND THIS ISN’T VERY FUN TO TYPE BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE A CAPS LOCK KEY SO SPOILERS I GUESS FOR THE NEWEST GODZILLA MOVIE SO YEAH SPOILERS GODZILLA SPOILERS GODZILLA SPOILERS GODZILLA SPOILERS GODZILLA SPOILERS GODZILLA
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Okay. So. I watched Godzilla last night. It was kind of interesting. It wasn’t actually a very good movie, but it was just crazy and stupid enough to be interesting. Lots of smashing buildings and stomping around cities, but, surprisingly, not very many images of people actually dying. Also, I was surprised to find that Godzilla played the part of ‘good’ monster. I don’t really know anything about the story of Godzilla, but I thought that it was the destructive and evil giant that stomped around Tokyo killing a bunch of people. But in this version, he ended up saving the world from the two parasite things in San Francisco. That was a surprise. It was just too unrealistic, however, that the one main character managed to practically save the world by being in the right place all the time. It was also nice that he saved that Japanese kid. Also, I cannot believe that those guys thought that they could defend themselves against a creature the size of a skyscraper with just a few (relatively speaking) tiny guns. I’m really not an expert on guns (really, I don’t know anything. I try to stay as far away as possible), but how could one well-placed shot with a handgun at most even faze a monster that big so Godzilla could come up behind, shoot a column of flames down its mouth and disintegrate it from the inside out? And the director should have maybe tried to make the whole thing a little better by maybe using SOME scientific background on the story. I mean, radiation, earthquakes, echolocation, ballistics… that’s about all the real science-based stuff in the movie. It’s too simple weird. But interesting, and I guess that’s all that they care about in a movie like this.
SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS HOW LONG DOES THIS NEED TO BE ANYWAY SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS SPOILERS AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON SPOILERS
Ok, bit of a late post although I’ve had the rough draft for days. So this is just the stuff I remember thinking about while watching. Possibly in chronological order but mostly as I remember them:
I couldn’t really see the beginning because the screen was all washed out because drive-in theater when not fully dark+ lots of snowy scenery leads to nearly blank screens. Whatever, Hydra is just the opening villain anyhow.
Avengers chilling and being friends in the Tower is very cool. They’ve made such progress since the first movie. The contest over lifting Mjolnir was funny. And Cap nearly budging it haha.
I nearly forgot who Rhodey was. It’s been a while since I seen the Iron Man films he’s in.
Bruce/Natasha–My first reaction was, “Wait are they flirting?”, and then , “Are they really putting in Bruce/Natasha? Where did this come from? This wasn’t foreshadowed at all”. And then, because I’m not much of a shipper, “*shrug* Let’s see how it goes”. Also in the back of my head: This is going to be controversial on the Internet.
I liked the bit with the Scarlet Witch-induced freakout/ flashbacks/Hulk rampage. Clint avoiding mind control this time = awesome.
Ultron’s creation: Tony, can you not tell a bad idea when it smacks you on the face? Lol @ tony and bruce being mad scientists together. Maybe I found it so funny because of Girl Genius.
Creepy robots are creepy. Even before Ultron took them all over. Why would people even make artificial intelligences that way. Also having taken an artificial intelligence class this semester and finishing the exam the day before I watched this film, I have had it pounded into my head how far we actually are from things like that. I have feelings on the subject. Wholly unexpected feelings.
Clint is married. I am ok with this, but at the time all I could think of was just how much fanfic had been jossed and how many shippers would be unhappy. It was an amusing thought.
Also all the farmhouse character development was nice.
The chase scene trying to get the body: ok. I enjoyed watching it.
The whole sterilization reveal and Natasha’s “I’m a monster” thing: Honestly I thought that what had been done to Natasha was worse than sterilization, like being implanted with cybernetics without painkillers. It’s still awful, of course, but more plebeian than I was expecting. I didn’t think much about the monster line at the time, but yeah I can definitely see the unfortunate implications. The line make more sense if it came up in a conversation about body counts and the red in her ledger, rather than one about birth control.
Vision! Aka the weird red guy. I had no idea who he was or where he came from. Well, I saw where he came from, he’s what, Jarvis and Ultron’s love child? I didn’t get why he was include, didn’t know or really care about him. Every time he was on screen was just a big “What” for me. But other people seem to love him? I don’t know why. Maybe they read the comics and have a bit more background to actually care.
Ultron was hilarious. All of his unconscious Tony Stark mannerisms, and when he flipped at being compared to him. I’ve seen some people say that that detracted from his scariness, but what, having him do the stereotypical looming villain thing would be sooo much scarier?
Lifting an entire city off the planet–ok. I see we are getting to the wide-scale comic book craziness now, not trying to make the films super-realistic, which I think has been the trend in other superhero movies.
I was really scared for Clint just because he kept hitting all these death flags in such an obvious way. Sudden reveal of family, looking at picture of them before final battle, etc. Way to go Marvel. You red-herringed me and killed Pietro instead. I was surprised. I liked him, but I’m not going to go and sob about his death. I just don’t get it. His and Wanda’s arrival had so much hype around it, and the difficulties with sharing the character with Fox and the X-Men franchise–then again maybe that’s why he was killed. To make avoiding legal issues easier. Otherwise I’m likely to take the Phil Coulson route–he’s not dead, just hiding. They didn’t actually have a funeral for him onscreen.
dissolution of avengers– I’m ok with this, but i don’t have huge attachments to Vision or anything and I worry that replacing the lineup, while in line with the comics, will reduce fans who were just there for Iron Man, the other characters we already know, or whatever. The plus side: the new team is diverse. It actually has more than one black man, and two women.
Steve and Tony’s conversation at the end was nice especially Steve’s part. Also kind of shippy, I thought. Heck, even Natasha thought it was shippy.
A quick look online shows most of the things i identified as sources of fan controversy while watching are indeed causing controversy. 3/4 of it is Bruce/Natasha–whether complaining about it from people who don’t want Natasha with anyone, who want Clint/Natasha, etc, or defending her ability to fall in love and have a romantic storyline.
I can see why people would say she’s OOC, but what does that even mean in a cinematic universe with multiple different writers based on comic books with even more writers?
I am ok with Bucky not being there or playing a role in the film aside form one small mention. It’s not a Captain America film. Most of the other characters have no impact with him, and there are enough people to keep track of as there is.
You might not be able to tell from most of my post, but I really liked Scarlet Witch. She’s my new favorite in this film, and I am glad she’s joining the Avengers.
Overall thoughts: film was very disjointed but I felt that way about the first Avengers film. It got better after watching prequels and getting the backstories and then rewatching. Maybe it will get better with age. I mean, I didn’t understand Loki fans at all before watching Thor and know I can see why they woobify him.
I agree with people who say that film was not as enjoyable as the first one. I think part of it was because it was setup for the Infinity War films. You need to take all the MCU films as a whole, like super long tv episodes not individual movies.
M favorite MCU movie is still The Winter Soldier. It had a smaller cast and more tightly focused plot.
MUSEBLOGGERS, LEND ME YOUR MOVIE RECS.
I’ve realized lately that watching movies is a lot more beneficial to my life progress than marathoning tv shows, but one goes through movies a lot faster than television so I need more recommendations. Preferably stuff that’s on netflix/amazon prime or has been released online for free, but I’ll take anything.
Some movies I’ve watched recently that I really enjoyed include:
(warning: i’m a cinema major and it makes me sound like a douche 100% of the time)
IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY (Don Hertzfelt, 2012)
Animated stick figures deliberately lead you to think about Existence. I knew it was my new favorite movie before I even finished watching it. I also am now lowkey obsessed with Don Hertzfelt.
I liked: Pacing, use of ~abstract images for emotional effect, HOW IT MADE ME FEEL
MAD MAX:FURY ROAD (George Miller, 2015)
str8 baller big budget action movie that makes u question so many things. I need to see it again for more thorough analysis but it’s in my top 5.
I liked: how it fit a bunch of intense moral questions into a big budget action movie, worldbuilding, how it kind of rocked my world
ELECTRICK CHILDREN (Rebecca Thomas, 2012)
Kind of different from the other two but I have been kind of a sucker for rural settings and skater kids lately, and I’m always a sucker for teen girl protagonists and Believing In Something.
so uh tell me what you’ve enjoyed lately and if you’re looking to watch a movie check out one of those! (mm:fr is in theatres, the other two are on netflix)
Your last one reminds me of We Are The Best! About two Scandinavian preteen girls who start a rock band. It was on netflix at one point and may still be.
I don’t really watch a lot of movies, but one that’s near and dear to me is Once Upon a Time in the West. It’s on Netflix, I think. If you’re a cinema major you’ve probably already watched it, but jeez, it’s good.
I recently watched Interstellar and it was really good. A lot better than Looper, which I also recently watched.
You can tell I’m not a movie person… videogames are more my thing. And books, I guess.
You probably already know Inception: otherwise watch it! It’s my favorite movie. Otherwise sorry, I’m not that much of a movie person tbh.
A bunch of my mathematically inclined friends made a video for their calculus class based off of this movie. It was hilarious and very well done and my boyfriend was Leonardo DiCaprio. It was on YouTube but bots took off the sound because copyright. (They used Zimmer’s original score, and a few other songs for jokes.) Anyway I just felt the need to point that out. I don’t think I’ve actually seen inception.
Things on Netflix I’ve enjoyed (that you have probably already seen, nerd):
– Clueless: 90’s teen romcom loosely based on Emma by Jane Austen. Spiritual successor to Mean Girls.
– I am going to assume that you have already seen Mean Girls, Forrest Gump, Big Lebowski.
– Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Audrey Hepburn’s most famous movie, charming except for her racistly-portrayed Japanese neighbor, but hey, I can forgive that because it was a long time ago.
– AIRPLANE! omg have you seen Airplane you have to watch it.
– Charade: Another Audrey Hepburn movie. I enjoyed this one more than Breakfast at Tiffany’s because it was pretty funny.
– Legally Blonde: guilty pleasure.
– Fargo: oh yah, you betcha.
– American Psycho: hella creepy, but Christian Bale was super good in it. Though I remember you not liking violence in TV (though you should DEFINITELY watch Breaking Bad!!!), so maybe steer clear of this one if that’s the case with movies too.
– Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: idk. A classic.
– Any Tarantino movie: okay… maybe not great if you’re not a fan of violence.
– Galaxy Quest: funny, a parody of Star Trek/Wars (mostly Trek), has Sigourney Weaver and Alan Rickman, not much more you can ask for.
– Zoolander: stupid enough that I felt dumb watching it with one of my friends who is not into this kind of humor. Still funny.
ALSO it’s not on Netflix and I’m sure you’ve seen it but watch Ocean’s Eleven!!! Even if you’ve seen it eleven times already!!! Such a good movie.
ALSO ALSO Life is Beautiful is not on Netflix but is an absolute must-watch.
P.S. I like your use of “low-key” as an adjective prefacing a noun. I was unaware that it was a nationwide phenomenon and I am low-key really excited to see that it is.
THINGS I LOVE INCLUDE
[ON NETFLIX:]
Ida (2013), which is incredible and subtle and moving. Idk how to describe the plot; it’s about Catholicism and Judaism and communism and Polish history and love. And it has a bunch of cinematic… stuff, I think – monochrome, interestingly framed shots, near-silence, jazz.
Life Itself (2014) – a documentary about Roger Ebert, which I think you might like as a cinema major! It has a lot of interviews from the end of his life, which are obviously hard to watch, but it’s really well-done, and his wife is amazing.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011) is a documentary about this chef in Japan who, uh, makes incredibly fancy sushi. The movie is a lot better than I just made it sound. Partly because it has beautiful shots of sushi, but also because it captures this man and his life in a way that I haven’t seen a lot of documentaries do.
The World’s Fastest Indian (2005) is a really charming movie about an old man from New Zealand who travels to the U.S. to race his ancient motorbike against a bunch of young professionals; it’s a true story, and although Anthony Hopkin’s NZ accent is kind of suspect, his character and the film are both endearing.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) – this is the best martial arts movie that I have ever seen (I think I first watched it when I was 7) and it makes me cry, violently.
Amélie (2001) – a French comedy, but also a beautiful character piece: engaging, witty, sweet, and beautifully shot and edited. Honestly I don’t usually like French comedies, because I am uncultured swine, but this one is brilliant.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) is a Werner Herzog documentary about the Chauvet Caves in France, which have the oldest known human cave paintings. It’s enchanting. Only a few people are allowed into the caves every year, but the film gets you as close as possible to the paintings. It’s my favorite Herzog movie; he draws you into the caves, but it still has his generally weird, surrealist edge.
Netflix is now recommending me the category of “Sentimental Foreign Movies,” which sums my life up pretty well.
[NOT ON NETFLIX:]
The Red Violin (1998), The King’s Speech (2010), Love Actually (2004) (I am pathetic), The Imitation Game (2014), The Theory of Everything (2015)
Foreign Letters (2012) UGH this was on Netflix for AGES and now it isn’t. Honestly I just need someone else to watch this film and tell me it’s as good as I think it is, because it is my favorite, ever (and a cinema major’s opinion would be especially good). I think I mostly like it because I identify with the main character a lot, but it also has fabulous music and a lovely script – simple, arguably cheesy, but real (I cry when I watch it, predictably). I think it’ll be quite hard to get hold of since it’s not on Netflix anymore, but if you get a chance, please watch it!
Also: All Miyazaki films, but especially Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away.
You’ve probably already seen a lot of these, but I thought I’d throw them out there anyway- sorry this is so long!
One more thing before I shut up: have you heard the podcast Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review? I keep trying to convert people into listeners (they’re really popular in the UK, since the show is on BBC Radio, but not here). I think you might really like it.
Oh god this was even longer than I thought, I am so sorry guys
okay so i, predictably, have thoughts about The Imitation Game, but a quick search implies they never got as far as MuseBlog when I saw it last winter.
as you likely know, I am a fan of Alan Turing, and I felt the movie really did a disservice to him and his work.
I find him incredibly relatable, so the scenes at the beginning where he did as much as possible to be unlikeable really alienated me from the movie. I’ve seen this handwaved away as “well they were trying to portray him as autistic” but
1. where is the real-life evidence that Turing was autistic?
2. not all people who are good at science or math have to be unlikable. not all autistic people misread others that badly.
3. I seem to recall that the actor playing Turing has said some bad things about autistic people.
(4. I really think it was a mistake casting Cumberbatch as Turing.)
The scenes at the end of his life where he is portrayed as a sad shell really didn’t help my feelings for the movie either.
like, it’s good that you enjoyed it, and I sat through it well enough, but I’d really hesitate to put it on a list of my favorite movies.
in actual movie recs news:
My favorite movie is probably Safety Not Guaranteed. I think it’s on Netflix, I think it came out in 2012.
I thought I’d read that there’s biographical evidence Turing was autistic. Is that not the case? (I haven’t seen the movie.)
Dodec,
“The Imitation Game” took huge liberties with history, and apparently it did make Turing less likable than he was in real life. (On the other hand, I’m reliably informed that both “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Theory of Everything” made their protagonists considerably more likable than their real-life counterparts, so I’m not sure there’s a consistent pattern of cinematic scientist-bashing.)
Okay. I don’t hesitate to put it on a list of my favorite movies, because I, well, liked it so much. Robert is right, it’s highly inaccurate, but I don’t think that in itself is a crime. I found Turing quite engaging, but more than that, I thought the movie did a beautiful job in terms of script and cinematography, and I’m a sucker for sad theme music.
Also, I gotta say, as a closeted gay person (IRL, that is, though obviously in nowhere near as horrific an environment as Turing’s), I found the version of Turing in the film relatable. I really appreciated that the film focused much more on his work than on his sexuality, and I thought it placed the blame for his death solely in the hands of the British legal system, rather than his own personal flaws.
I’m with you on Cumberbatch. I’m not sure why someone who seems to believe autism is a tragic disability that prevents its sufferers from having anything approaching a fulfilling life keeps taking roles that are autistic-by-implication.
I mean, at least The Imitation Game portrayed Turing’s suffering and triumph as his own, and not as inspiration-fodder for the Real Protagonist, as so much media about disabled people does… But as you said, it took huge liberties with the historical Turing.
I enjoyed the film. I’d say my opinion lies between Dodec’s and Chok’s — not one of my favorite movies, but I didn’t know enough about Turing’s real story to get annoyed by the divergences.
JURASSIC WORLD IS IN THEATERS, PEOPLE
THIS IS NOT A DRILL
do you think they would let me bring in a stuffed Triceratops to celebrate
Some of my friends on another site said they went in costume as characters, so maybe.
Update: IT WAS EVERYTHING I HOPED IT WOULD BE AND MORE.
however, I did not end up bringing in my Triceratops because I deemed it to be a Hassle.
Thoughts, anyone, on Inside Out?
On a related note: best/worst Pixar films?
On a slightly more tangentially related note, best/worst animated films in general?
I loved Inside Out! It’s right up there with Up for my favorite Pixar films. I enjoyed it. I don’t have sophisticated opinions on movies.
I adored Inside Out. I can write a longer feelings summary later, but my thoughts boil down to this: it is so, so important that there’s a movie out there in mass culture that teaches kids that it’s okay to not always be okay and that feelings, even sad and hard feelings, are a natural part of being human.
I’m in a low-anxiety, good-mood period of my life right now, but my baseline is more anxious and emotional than I think is average. I take after my dad, who has dealt with mild depression on and off for most of his life, and my mom is a child psychologist, and–basically, Feelings Talk has always been a huge part of my life, and was important to the way I was raised, and I place enormous value on it. If I were having a harder time emotionally right now I think I would have been destroyed (in a good way) by the movie; as is, I was pretty blown away by it.
I think it’s important for kids to see, and important to help families start conversations about feelings, and–yeah.
It isn’t my favorite Pixar movie, because there are other ones that I think are just better films. But there aren’t any I think are more important.
Favorite Pixar movies: TOY STORY 3, Up, Ratatouille, Finding Nemo
Also Adore: Wall-E (first kiss was during this movie when I was 14 lol), Monsters Inc.
Eh, enjoyable enough: Monsters University, Brave
Least favorite Pixar movies: Cars, but it still made me cry lolz.
Don’t remember well enough to rank: Toy Story 1 and 2
Haven’t seen: Bug’s Life (how have I not seen this), Cars 2 (who cares)
My partner’s been wanting to see Inside Out, but I’m not sure I would like it. I find most movies to be designed to evoke too much of an emotional investment, and as I have lately been especially emotional and don’t like crying in public, I don’t go out to the movies much anymore. Inside Out, specifically, I’m worried about seeing because when I was younger I did compartmentalize aspects of my emotions, and I don’t want to be too reminded of that, as it was not a great time in my life.
Do you think I should see it? Wait for DVD? Not bother?
Dodec: Wait for DVD, at the very least, because literally everyone that I know that has seen it cried in the theater. If you’re not opposed to spoilers, I’d read some reviews too to see whether it might be something you’d find enjoyable and/or cathartic rather than just upsetting. To me it seems like it could be the former (there isn’t a whole lot to do with compartmentalization by the human character since the emotions all have agency) but that reaction is very personal and could absolutely go either way.
I thought it was pretty good but had trouble seeing why everyone was so very excited about it. & the short that preceded it — Lava — struck me as nothing so much as embarrassing.
My favorite Pixar is Brave, because it was apparently designed in a lab to appeal to me, a bookish girl who read too many fantasy novels about rebellious princesses at too early an age. I wished it had been made earlier so I could have seen it when I was nine. Finding Nemo is special to me because it was the first movie I ever saw in theaters.
Ratatouille is great, and I don’t remember liking WALL-E all that much but I feel like if I saw it again I would. I like all the rest (except the car ones & Monsters Inc which I haven’t seen), except for the Incredibles which in hindsight I find deeply philosophically troubling.
My actual favorite animated movies are all stop-motion — Coraline is my number one favorite, and then ParaNorman and Chicken Run. Stop-motion animation is my secret weakness. My other secret weakness is Tangled.
What did you find troubling about the Incredibles?
Yeah, Lava had a cute catchy song but was otherwise sort of annoying, in my opinion. Why do we need sexual dimorphism of volcanoes. Why can’t the girl volcano look like a mountain too. Why.
Yeah, I thought it was kind of cute but the rhymes were forced and the ‘lava’ pun wore itself out by the second chorus.
Also, (spoilers!) pretty sure tectonic plates do not work that way, and I found the idea of a long string of volcanos, each desperately wishing for a companion and all unaware of the ones that came before watching from behind, much more emotionally captivating.
Wow… tough crowd. I liked Lava
I did enjoy it while I was watching it, don’t get me wrong. The animation was lovely, the music was good (though I still don’t think the lava pun should’ve been in the chorus), and it was very clever. I was legitimately emotionally involved in a pair of volcanoes, which was pretty impressive.
I just wasn’t a fan of the forced happy ending. It didn’t fit with what I know about the science behind volcanoes, and I felt it was emotionally far less powerful, even if it was cute. I guess my ending would be a little dark for children, though.
I guess I would’ve forgiven it a lot more if I’d been more solidly behind the premise, though. I’m heartily sick of the ‘Romantic love is more important than anything else in the universe!’ message that seems to be all over media, and implying that that’s true even for volcanoes does not make me happy.
…I’ve probably now spent more time writing about the short than I spent watching it.
I greatly enjoyed it and intend to dress up as Joy for Halloween.
Favorite Pixar movie: probably The Incredibles but I’m pretty fond of all of them, at least the ones I’ve seen. There are several I’ve missed so far, though.
I just watched Inside Out today! The story of a young girl moving from Minnesota to San Francisco was interesting, and watching it in SF itself was HILARIOUS — they make so many subtle, yet true, jokes. (It’s incorrect that they would cross the Golden Gate to get into SF, though. More likely that they’d cross the Bay Bridge. but this is pretty minor and I forgive it because Movie) Plus the whole hockey thing? So Minnesotan, and hilarious. It was also very deep and extremely relatable, speaking as someone who moved around a lot as a child, but I have no idea how to analyze movies so I’ll leave it at that.
Favorite Pixar movies: Finding Nemo (the first movie I saw in theaters!), Monster’s Inc, WALL-E, Up, The Incredibles
Most underrated Pixar movie: A Bug’s Life
Also excellent: everything Toy Story, Ratatouille
Haven’t seen: Brave, Monsters U
We shall not speak of: Cars + its sequels
So yes. I greatly enjoyed Inside Out. Plus the short that came before it, Lava, was freaking adorable and more of an emotional roller coaster than Inside Out itself.
I also just learned that there actually is a pizza place in Berkeley that only serves pizzas with one topping (but they switch up the topping every day). “San Francisco, you’ve ruined pizza,” indeed.
but there’s also Zachary’s, which more than makes up for that
I loved Inside Out! I went to see it with my two younger cousins, and I thought it was great for them to see a movie that suggested that adults have complex and conflicting emotions as well as children. I don’t think it was up with my favorite Pixar movies in terms of animation, because it didn’t have the really visceral texture and color that films like Ratatouille do, but in terms of plot and storytelling, and psychology, it was tremendous (and heart-wrenching).
My favorite Pixar films are Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up; I think Ratatouille is definitely my favorite animated movie. Outside of Pixar, though, I love Wallace and Gromit and the Were-Rabbit, and I am a huge and embarrassing fan of Frozen.
I loved Inside Out! The concept was creative, the characters were adorable, there were a lot of good jokes, and I liked how they got the audience invested in a relatively low-stakes plot (can a preteen girl cope with moving to a new town?) by scaling the story down to happen mostly inside her head.
Favorite Pixar movies are Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Ratatouille, Monsters Incorporated, and the Incredibles.
SO WHO’S EXCITED FOR DEADPOOL, CIVIL WAR, AND DOCTOR STRANGE NEXT YEAR
IM SO HYPED FOR CIVIL WAR MY BFF AND I ARE SEEING IT WHEN IT COMES OUT
So I saw The Martian two nights ago. Arguably the best movie ever. Watch it. Now.
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That was a really long spoiler tag but I don’t want anyone to be spoiled for this movie who hasn’t seen it already!
It’s very very good! It’s well worth your time! I saw it on Friday (one of my band friends somehow managed to get his hands on an obscene amount of tickets and invited a ton of band kids and I was one of them) and it was the best movie I’ve seen all year. I was grinning for much of the movie- I could barely contain my excitement. I loved it.
It uses a lot of callbacks to the original trilogy- Episode IV in particular. Even visual callbacks like the powerpoint slide transitions :’) And you really get this sense of the cycle of good and evil, and of a new generation of Star Wars. And a new generation of fans. It’s so good. Holy cake.
I love the new protagonists! Finn and Rey are wonderful and adorable and I love them. I started tearing up when they piloted the Falcoln for the first time :’) My only complaint would be that Rey was slightly too OP but y’know I’m letting it slide cause I loved her anyway. And seeing the old protagonists there (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford all make appearances as their respective characters) was really great.
Williams outdid himself on the soundtrack as always. Visually, the entire movie is stunning. (I’m no cinema buff but it looked really cool!!! it’s 2015 and I love movies!!!) I’ll likely be seeing it again sometime this winter break because it was just that good. [throws all my money at lucasfilm/disney while sobbing]
Not sure how I feel about teen-angst Kylo Ren as the villain- after having Vader and all these other guys in the original trilogy it was a little underwhelming having this really young guy be the focus of our antipathy. ((And my friend says she ships him and Rey ewww why)).
There are other things that I want to discuss but won’t because honestly even though I have a spoiler tag it’s not worth risking spoiling the movie for someone else (if you’ve seen the movie you know. which spoilers. im talking about. aah.)
The friends I saw it with totally confirmed the nerdboy stereotype of picking apart the technical details of the film by pointing out every part of it that was impossible. (like jeez! is this how you enjoy a film! can’t you sit back and say yeah it’s good?) Like ‘obviously that death star mk. 2 couldn’t exist! after it absorbed the sun it would fly off into space because no gravity.’ I think if they invented something that could absorb an entire sun, they could invent some stabilizers for it. Honestly! And if you can’t appreciate something without picking apart every technical detail then star wars (and science fiction in general) probably isn’t for you! But that’s just how I see it. Honestly hacking away at technicalities is just their own weird way of enjoying stuff. Must be why they all like super smash bros so much. ;_;
Anyway, that’s my review! I’m curious to see what everyone else thought of it but at the same time nothing anyone can say will tarnish my opinion which is that I thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t wait for Episode VIII.
Spoilers, The Force Awakens… Maybe? I guess it depends on whether or not you care very much about the opening shot of the movie, which I doubt.
Sorry, but… The very first shot of the movie (after the opening crawl, of course). It showed what I think was the entire daylight side of Starkiller Base and the silhouette of a Star Destroyer transiting in front of the camera. Except… if the whole planet is lit up, then the sun would be directly behind the camera some however-many million miles away. But that would also mean that it would illuminate the Star Destroyer, too, since it would be in the path of the light reaching the planet. This would still happen even if the Base was only half lit, or a quarter, because of the angle of the sun to the planet and ship. It might even still work if the sun was just below the horizon and we were facing the dark side, since the light would be bent around from refraction in the atmosphere. There might be some logical (and likely) explanation to this, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot and can’t find any. Any thoughts?
Also, sorry, AL, that I couldn’t help but be like your friends and notice some of the flaws in the movie. I really liked it as a whole, and it had a lot of great references to the old trilogy. But there were also a couple things that annoyed me. Yeah.
That’s a really good point. After having seen the movie three times I’m still fuzzy on the details of the opening shot. But from what you described it sounds like the only way the ship could not be illuminated is if there was some large object between the ship and the sun- say, a moon that happened to be angled so it blocked light to the ship but didn’t eclipse Starkiller Base. Starkiller base has (had) no moons that I know of, so it could also have been a larger ship. (or a massive interplanetary camera rig lol)
Don’t worry about it- I know very well the feeling of needing to point out technical flaws haha, it’s just I’ve always sort of seen Star Wars as a fairy tale, and my friends didn’t even stop to enjoy the story as a whole before analyzing whether the “science” part of science fiction held up.
I guess we all see things differently!
(Also, did you see the SNL skit with Matt the Radar Technician? It’s hilarious- go look it up if you haven’t)
Maybe the object blocking the sunlight is a really big movie camera.
I wonder: in the distant future, will movies about space ever be filmed in space?
“The Dream Is Alive” (1985) was advertised as the “first feature film shot in space”, but because it was a documentary and for IMAX, people usually don’t consider it as such. (“Space Station” and “Hubble 3-D” are the same, as are “Blue Planet” and “Destiny in Space”, although those have less footage filmed aboard the shuttle.) “Apogee of Fear” is a short film shot by space tourist Richard Garriott that has been shown at a few conferences but never had a commercial release because of some legal stuff.
Stop the presses! I looked it up and apparently you *can* see “Apogee of Fear” as a special feature on the DVD of Garriott’s documentary “Man on a Mission”. So it was never released as a feature of its own, but it is a film with a fictional plot shot in space that you can pay to see… Now where do I get a copy?
Watched the new Star Wars movie with the parents today. And I can say spoiler free that, without question, the best part of the movie and the only laugh out loud moment was when a little old lady in the row in front of me loudly asked her granddaughter: Why did he [the ticket taker at the theater] say ‘May the force be with you?’, isn’t that Star Trek?” and I snorted–loudly–and then smothered the subsequent manic giggles.
The woman’s comment took place in a period of dead silence in the theater, when there was a glitch between the pre-preview commercials on the screen and the previews at the beginning, when the screen was blank, no sound, and no one in the theater talking.
The movie itself? I admit, never been a huge Star Wars fan. Watched the original trilogy for the first time in undergrad, never saw the prequel trilogy, and watched the first movie of the original trilogy for a second time last night. And was torn between being rather bored, and wanting to pound C3PO over and over again with a hammer until he stopped talking because good god he’s annoying.
So I had gone in remembering the amazingness of JJ Abrams new Trek movies, that set my whole Trekkie-dom in motion, than inspired me to start slogging my way through all of Trek, and was torn between hope and fear that his Star Wars would do the same.
And was majorly underwhelmed. It was a reasonably entertaining couple of hours, but nothing that really merits plans for a rewatch, and was just overall ok but nothing to write home about.
Just……meh.
I thought The Force Awakens was much, much better than Star Trek Into Darkness. The first new Star Trek was really good (I’ve seen it a bunch of times), but Into Darkness was just… meh. Very, very meh.
The Force Awakens was amazing, though. I’ve seen it twice in theaters now. The cinematography, the score, the casting — all of it was stunning.
@AL: I’m with you on the whole fact-checking thing. I mean, it’s sci-fi, you have to suspend disbelief when it comes to physics and such. Being too nitpicky ruins it.
We just have different tastes! I absolutely loved Into Darkness (which I saw prior to the first new Star Trek), have seen it at least 8 times, although admittedly I think I like the first new one better, I still love it.
Force Awakens….meh.
But hey! It’s no fun when everyone has identical opinions.
What’s wrong with you guys? The Martian is the best, obviously!
After talking to more and more people about Star Wars, I think it’s clear that a certain amount of nostalgia is necessary to enjoy the movies. Everyone I’ve talked to who didn’t see them as a child wasn’t very impressed by The Force Awakens.
I loved it, probably due to a combination of 1) It wasn’t terrible, 2) Harrison Ford is back, and 3) BB-8. I could look past the iffy parts and revel in the glory that it’s STAR WARS! YAY! It’s not boring like the prequels! YAY! The series has been redeemed!
I thought the Force Awakens was meh (and I didn’t see the others as a child). Loved star trek 2009, hated star trek into darkness. I think also partly a lot of people who love the Force Awakens are looking at it as part 1/3, because really as a stand alone movie there’s nothing there.
I saw the movies for the first time only a couple of years ago, and I loved TFA. I was with my boyfriend and his sister who are huge Star Wars fans, though, so maybe they rubbed off on me?
It was solidly made and I liked the characters, new and old.
I really enjoyed TFA. Didn’t think the story was particularly original or brilliant, but the cast was great and really sold the emotional core of the story. I think after the disaster of the prequels, everyone was just thrilled that they got to see a competently made Star Wars film. It comfortably exceeded my low expectations.
[SPOILER WARNING] The Resistance’s op-sec needs work. How many times does the First Order get tipped off to the map’s location by random informants? Three? Maybe don’t hand off the MacGuffin to a unique, immediately-visually-identifiable droid and let en hang on to it.
I found TFA so meh that I forgot to post about it here. I liked pretty much everything except the entire plot/story. Tbh it felt like a remake of a certain other Star Wars movie… We moved Jaina and Tahiri into “Legacies” for this? I’m still hoping that the NJO will get a Battlestar Galactica-esque tv series.
Anybody else see the Logan trailer? I just kinda watch the Fox X-Men movies on and off and haven’t really cared about Wolverine in a long time, but this actually looks really good. Kind of a smaller-scale, character-based thing with only a few car chases and claws going through people’s heads. Also, I love Charles Xavier and I strongly suspect this will be the character’s chronologically last movie alive.
And then we have Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in May! I’m a sucker for fun sci-fi and the ragtag-misfits-become-a-family-and-care-about-each-other-more-than-they-would-admit trope, so the first one was definitely my favorite MCU movie.