LR's MOVIE OF THE NOW

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

He gets a pass for that one via my ignorance.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

I watched 3/4 of the new 300 movie. Stopped it because it was terrible and 2:30 am. The main actor was incredibly bad. Writing wasn't great and he didn't even deliver it convincingly. Not a good movie, can't stress that enough. Eva Green was redeeming, but it could only be saved so much. For a historian, it must be embarrassing to see Themistocles portrayed so poorly. One of my flatmates warned me that it was awful, but I didn't listen.

[Oldrac the Chitinous]

Did anyone get kicked into a pit?
That's the reason I watched the first one.

[Liriodendron_fagotti]

No pits!

[GUTCHUCKER]

Except for all the shaved ones, and glued on abs.

[smiley_cow]

Ernest and Celestine - This is a beautiful movie about prejudice and teeth and you should all watch it because it is one of the most absolutely charming movies I have ever seen.

Also it's a really wonderfully animated 2D animated film made this past year, if you're one of those people who miss and want to support 2D animation.

[Kaharz]

Watched a few movies over the last couple of weeks.

Wolf of Wall Street - Very good, very entertaining. It was a little over the top, but that was kind of the point so it worked. I think it is almost three hours long and it kept me thoroughly entertained the whole time, which is an achievement.

The Three Amigos - Still holds up. Not as hilarious as when I was a kid, but still a great comedy.

Don Jon - It was pretty good. The acting was great, although the wealth of stereotypical north jersey characters kind of grated on my nerves. It was a little too blunt in my opinion. It made Oliver Stone look subtle at times. I also thought that the movie really badly undermined itself at the end. The whole point about unrealistic expectations in porn vs unrealistic expectations in romance movies kind of went to shit with the end of the movie very nearly playing out like a stereotypical romance movie. Maybe it was more subtle than I thought and I missed something, but I thought it hurt the movie over all.

[Edminster]

Wrong Cops

It's by the guy who did Rubber, so if you didn't like the movie about a psychokinetic tire bent on murder you're probably not going to go into this one in the proper frame of mind. In point of fact I'm not entirely certain just what the proper frame of mind for watching this film is, but goddamn did I love it.

[smiley_cow]

Saw How To Train Your Dragon II, it was pretty disappointing. The villain was really weak and felt tacked on, and had a really weak motivation for doing anything he did; a few moments obviously tacked on for emotional impact but served no narrative purpose, especially the father's death that really changed nothing in the story; a lot of completely wasted story potential; the women got undercut completely any moment you thought they might be allowed to do something useful. Basically it was a really strong first act and then everything just kind of felt blah after that.

[Lethal Interjection]

Australia - Minus anachronistic music and weird style? Far from typical Baz Luhrman. The Aussies were right (though I had to see for myself, being not Australian). Definitely outside of Luhrman's style. Visually pretty good, but that is about all it had going for it.

[DonRetrasado]

Saw How To Train Your Dragon II, it was pretty disappointing. The villain was really weak and felt tacked on, and had a really weak motivation for doing anything he did; a few moments obviously tacked on for emotional impact but served no narrative purpose, especially the father's death that really changed nothing in the story; a lot of completely wasted story potential; the women got undercut completely any moment you thought they might be allowed to do something useful. Basically it was a really strong first act and then everything just kind of felt blah after that.

I agree with your assessment! It was seeming very strong and cool until it kind of unravelled. So the villain has his rockin' alpha dragon, which he controls somehow (it's not explained), and this alpha dragon controls the other dragons (which I guess makes sense but I thought was kinda lame), and he uses them to just kinda cause trouble? He's building some kind of dragon army in order to make dragons extinct, which seems foolish as you'll always be left with one dragon too many. So the good guys all have their dragons mind-controlled and they have no powers whatsoever to stop the villains, except apparently they can just use baby dragons 'cause whatever! And those baby dragons, combined with the power of <3LOVE<3 manage to un-mind-control them. It's almost like they wrote themselves into a corner with no way to turn it around, then some writing B-team came in to throw in some weak cliches to tie it all together, like at the end of a sitcom episode where everything has gone wrong but still ends back at the status quo (except we Harry Potter-killed the father). I mean, it's Dream-"the secret ingredient is love"-Works, what do you expect, but I would've hoped for something more, especially since the first movie was kind of clever.

[smiley_cow]

Yeah, the movie really feels like they set up one film and gave us another. Especially how the conflict that's set up is Hiccup becoming chief when he doesn't want to, and then it's not emotionally addressed again throughout the rest of the film. He just randomly saves dragons, his father dies and he's chief and everyone, including him randomly, are just happy with it. I really wouldn't be surprised if there had been a massive rewrite at some point. And yeah, I really didn't think the alpha dragon thing worked at all. It comes out of nowhere, it's poorly explained, it's getting in the way of them actually addressing and dealing with some of the themes in the movie, and was I the only one who just found it really creepy?

[DonRetrasado]

Oh here's another one I thought of. So Hiccup's mother seems pretty cool, and introduces some cool ideas, but does she actually do anything? It seems like the plot would be almost unchanged without her. And then when they ask her to leave her new life behind she just goes "okay whatever! I'm not really invested in this at all!" I feel like this could've been an awesome story in conjunction with the "uneasy about being chief" bit and it's totally wasted. Yeah, a rewrite sounds like the best explanation. There's too much that doesn't really add up.

[Kovvy]

I just saw Edge of Tomorrow. I thought that it was a pretty neat movie in spite of Tom Cruise, but I was so happy that it was going to have a suicide mission that was actually a suicide mission, but it didn't end up actually being a suicide mission because reasons.

1,000 Ways to Die in the West was pretty okay until I realized I got tricked into seeing a romantic comedy.

Also, regarding the last few movies mentioned that I've also seen:

Pacific Rim: I really enjoyed it, and I feel special when I can mention that I know Guy Davis, who did story boarding and character design for the kaiju.
Rubber: That movie was not at all what I expected it to be from the previews.

[smiley_cow]

Oh here's another one I thought of. So Hiccup's mother seems pretty cool, and introduces some cool ideas, but does she actually do anything? It seems like the plot would be almost unchanged without her. And then when they ask her to leave her new life behind she just goes "okay whatever! I'm not really invested in this at all!" I feel like this could've been an awesome story in conjunction with the "uneasy about being chief" bit and it's totally wasted. Yeah, a rewrite sounds like the best explanation. There's too much that doesn't really add up.

Yeah, The mother was a bit jarring in a few places. The one that really bothered me was when Hiccup suddenly showed her he'd lost part of his leg, and she was just 'ah, interesting,leg gone. Now about dragons...' I mean, I'm not a mother, but I imagine if I was seeing my son for the first time since he was a baby, I might be a little concerned that he'd lost a limb somewhere along the way. It's really too bad, because there's so much potential with a character like that, and then they just did nothing with it. I think the most meaningful thing she did was confirm she was still in love with Hiccup's father and show Hiccup a few dragons.

Pacific Rim: I really enjoyed it, and I feel special when I can mention that I know Guy Davis, who did story boarding and character design for the kaiju.

Man, Pacific Rim was one of my favourite new movies I've seen in a long time. Also that is cool about knowing Guy Davis. I've seen a bit of his concept art (along with others) for the Kaiju's. The Kaiju designs were pretty great.