It wasn't a bad movie month, dudes. Uh, that is to say, I saw a lot of movies. Many of them sucked, so I guess I'm not sure if it was a bad movie month or not.
Far and away, the best movie I saw this month was Snowpiercer, no small feat as I once claimed I'd never see a movie starring Chris Evans again after his putrid, borderline laughable performance in Fantastic Four. On the other hand, Fantastic Four somehow made Michael Chiklis look like a no-talent knob, so the problems certainly didn't start with Evans.
Anyway, Evans is a powerhouse here. The movie doesn't ask a lot of range of him, as he's experiencing lows most of the way, but he makes the most of every moment and draws the viewer in on a character level to a movie that's mostly plot, plot, plot (which isn't a criticism, exactly, but a movie that focuses so much on plot is often open to issues with the audience giving a damn).
I saw a ton of other movies, too, which I'll hopefully cover during this rare Monday off, but I had to get that one out of the way. What have you seen?
I also saw Snowpiercer and loved it. I didn't even realize it was Chris Evans until afterwards. The only problem I had was with Netflix. For some reason, there was no sub-titles for the security systems engineer unless I switched English sub-titles on. Problem was it was the CC sub-titles, so I had them for everyone, which I found really distracting.
The Hobbit, Rankin-Bass version.
Slower and sillier than I recall, the background exposition being too extensive, and with too many important things only shared via songs... which do not have subtitles*.
How does a 77-minute movie feel that long?
*I got in the habit of watching movies with subtitles on from my wife, whose mother has hearing difficulty (but more recently got a hearing aid). They prevent us having to pause to ask "what did he say?" They allow us to watch movies at lower volumes and be less likely to wake kids.
I like the subtitles on my Miyakazke films, because a bunch of them have subtitles matching the original Japanese rather than the overdub, which can give you a better appreciation of what the original point was. I think in Mononoke, the original calls it the "Deer God", while in the dub, it's the "Spirit of the Forest".
They're also helpful with a lot of the British literary adaptations, where the accents can be a bit thick. Our first time through Jeeves & Wooster, we had the A&E versions, which had neither subtitles nor closed-captions. Now we've got the new Acorn Media versions, which have subtitles, and there's a whole new set of jokes that I missed the first time.
I use subtitles when I watch movies/TV shows while riding my bike in the basement. The trainer was loud enough that I really couldn't hear the dialogue, which was important on dialogue heavy shows like The Wire or Sopranos. Now I will ocassionally use the subtitles for British literary adaptions because of the accents. Once you become used to it, it's not distracting at all imho.
I think Peter Jackson stole some of the Rankin-Bass background exposition for his prologue to LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring.
Speaking of Peter Jackson, I saw a preview of the last Hobbit movie. Hoo boy. I really think he completely lost the spirit of the story in order to present a "spectacle!!!!"
I want to see Rankin-Bass's LOTR now, just out of curiosity. I know I saw it once as a kid, or at least bits, when it was aired on pre-Fox/WB/UPN KMSP some winter weekend.
Is it resolved that there will be a great movie version of The Hobbit when Peter Jackson's version is edited down to a 3-hour or so version with barely anything added?
The Rankin-Bass LOTR is in two parts. The second is really hard to find. It's decent as a curiousity but a lot is skipped and more songs.
I wholeheartedly agree with The Hobbit discussion below. I'm not a sure even a three-hour essential cut of the three movies would work at this point.
I'll watch the last Hobbit movie, but I already feel pretty certain that I won't really enjoy anything other than Freeman's performance (his Frodo has been the best acting performance of the entire series, IMO).
I may be "part of the problem".
I put up with some stuff in the LotR series, but the whole Hobbit series has been silly action movies masquerading (poorly) as an adaptation of a great novel. I too am part of the problem.
What gets me (especially about the second movie) is how the action scenes are often times so silly, yet devoid of any real fun. I mean, if you're going to have hobbits in barrels bobbing down a river, at least make it fun. This isn't Gotham City.
I thought the whole orc chase scene in the first movie would have been better in a Keystone Cops film.
It couldn't be that great if his Bilbo makes you think he's Frodo...
Wow. I'm dumb.
Maze Runner: Was in the mood for teenage fluff, and got what I came for. The maze itself was cooler than I thought it would be.
Maleficent: My wife, a huge Sleeping Beauty fan, wanted to see it. Much much better than I was hoping. Not a great movie or terribly dramatic, but solid and visually interesting. What I hoped Oz The Great and Powerful would be.
I hated Maleficent, for reasons I've mentioned here before. I may repeat those reasons later.
Interstellar: The beginning of the movie was alright, the middle was fantastic, the end was... disappointing. It was decent overall, but I mostly felt disappointed since the potential was there for so much more.
Nightcrawler: Absolutely loved it. Gyllenhaal's performance was mesmerizing and made my skin crawl. Looking forward to watching it again soon.
Hannibal Season 1: J & I powered through the end of this on my last couple of visits. I'm honestly surprised at just how good the show is. Mads Mikkelsen is a very good Hannibal, despite how distracting his giant tie knots are. We will likely watch most of Season 2 when she's down visiting for Thanksgiving.
Series 2 of The Fall started last week and is already awesome. It's going to be painful watching it week to week, but probably worth it since the show is just so damn good. It'll be up on Netflix in January in case you'd prefer to watch that way. If you haven't watch the first series I highly recommend it.
From everything I heard, Interstellar was too much Spielberg and not enough Nolan.
Yeah, there were multiple times where he would say something, and I would physically wince with the creepiness of it. He inhabited that character so well.
Has anyone else been disappointed with this latest season's Doctor Who? It's not Peter Capaldi's fault, the writing has just been so off, IMO.
I find myself watching Lincoln every time I pass it on the premium channels -- guess I'm checking to see if the vote changes.
Chris Evans has done a more than credible job in his roles as Captain America. I'd give him another try.
I have about four or five episodes yet to see, but yes, I have been disappointed in Doctor Who this season. I agree, it's not Capaldi's fault. The stories haven't been very good (although I think they have been getting better), and they still haven't made Clara a real character (which is not Jenna Coleman's fault, either). I was hoping once the "impossible girl" storyline was over they'd make Clara a real person, but she seems to still just be a plot device. I blame the writers and Moffat, who after all is in overall control.
Snowpierce was great, saw it in theater and recently saw it on Netflix too.
Saw Fury the other day. Decent war movie. Typical "young innocent guys gets tossed in with a bunch of grizzled veterans and proves his meddle" war movie. (that's not really a spoiler there). It was good, not great. Still trying to get to Interstellar, hopefully this coming weekend.
Big month for movies, but I'm in training so I won't take time to comment specifically unless folks are interested.
I also saw Snowpiercer and thoroughly enjoyed everything up until
Homeland
Dredd
Sleeping Beauty
The Lion King
Monsters, Inc.
42
GoT: Season 3, Episodes 5-6
3 Days to Live
Odd Thomas
How I Live Now
Suspect Zero
House of Cards ( not sure which ones - my wife started watching while home on maternity leave so I've seen a few from somewhere in the first two seasons. Enjoyed what I saw).
Odd Thomas is one of my favorite Koontz novels. How was it?
I enjoyed it. I'm a big fan of Anton Yelchin and he doesn't disappoint. It seemed like the director couldn't decide if he was making a scary movie with funny bits or a comedy with scary bits, and Willem Dafoe's talents go mostly unused, but overall I liked the characters and the story well enough to get past that. Certainly worth the hour-and-a-half I spent with it.
...
Then again, I also watched that Costner mess without too much complaint because I'm a fan of his, so take it with a grain of salt.
Oh, my. 'Mess' is the perfect way to describe that movie.
I rather enjoyed Dredd. As I mentioned on Facebook, it made me miss "Almost Human". I really enjoy acerbic sci-fi Karl Urban.
Dredd! .\m/
Yes, Almost Human had some nice chemistry going. If it wasn't as expensive, I'm sure they'd have continued it.
I never saw Almost Human, but I enjoyed Dredd too.
* The Conjuring - Everything I could have possibly wanted out of a haunted house flick. Good atmosphere, nice performances, and good fun in the "angry ghost slamming doors" vein.
* Begin Again - Linds really wanted to see this. Kind of boring Once clone. I guess it was alright.
* Nightcrawler - Deserves a good portion of the good press it's getting. Gyllenhaal is really good as the skeezy camera guy, and there are some great, tension-filled moments.
* Fargo - I had, ahem, never seen this. I rectified that horrible error. It's a great movie.
* Neighbors - Pretty funny, never uproariously funny, but funny enough. I liked the payoff.
Let's see…
I actually saw a movie in the theater! Went to St. Vincent. It was pretty good. Bill Murray will win the Oscar. I'm happy for him.
Watched 42 this weekend. Finally. I had just read a Jackie Robinson bio. (By "just read," I mean just finished because it takes me six months to read biographies.) I was a bit surprised at the movie I saw and how rather, well, small it was. But it was entertaining and seeing the baseball action in "Ebbets Field" was kind of cool.
I'm going to Interstellar tomorrow. Pretty excited to see it. Learned that our town is running $5 Tuesday movies + buy-a-soda-get-a-popcorn deals. I used to go to so many movies and watch even more at home. Then kids. Anywho, I've kind of latched on to another movie nut from my past and might just make this Tuesday thing a habit.
I caught the trail end of the second Hunger Games at a friend's and it was interesting enough for me to go find the first one at Redbox. For a movie classified as young adult, I thought the story was pretty well done. I'm looking forward to watching the second on Netflix tonight.
Right now, I'm watchingX-Men: Days of Future Past. Got a free disc at Redbox, so I'm watching that now before I have to take them back tonight.
Oh, right, saw X-Men this past month, too. Let me say the use of "Time in a Bottle" made for a very surreal scene.
Now the only X-Men movie left to see it the second Wolverine one. I'm not as excited to see that one.
Hard to screw up the story when you're lifting it from somewhere else.
I fully intended to cover about eight movies and a few shows in this space today but for whatever reason it didn't happen.
Short version:
You're Next was almost a really clever horror movie that couldn't stop getting in its own way.
"BoJack Horseman" is a fairly funny and unorthodox sitcom, which is something I feel I'm not seeing enough of lately.
Cripes, did nothing else leave an impression on me this month? I swear I saw six or seven more movies. Oh, right, The Human Race. This was another would-be excellent horror movie that lost its way at some point and in the end overestimated the audience's love for a certain character while doing a better job of making others sympathetic. We don't automatically love the musclebound white guy, filmmakers.
Did anyone else see Birdman?
Not yet. I finally have the opportunity to go, though, and I plan on taking advantage of it.
Oh boy, and it looks like Whiplash is open here too. Dammit.
Went to the new Hunger Games movie tonight with Linds, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It is approximately what I would have expected, having read the books - half a movie, with mostly the tension building in this half. It's not always successful, but overall, it succeeds, I think.