Film Fanatics - Chat Thread II

Lincoln update for y'all:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118036467

Speilberg, Daniel Day Lewis, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, John Hawkes and Hal Holbrook.

Do you have any links to the story, sounds oddly intriguing?!

I saw a bit of Amelie in school once. In a French lesson.

Black Swan looks like Natalie Portman doing weird faces. At least, that's all I can remember from the trailer. Isn't Scarface loud, OTT and in-your-face. Like a Transformers version of Once Upon a Time in America or Road to Perdition?

But I'll definitely watch Annie Hall, just to get what all the fuss about Woody Allen is. I've only seen Cassandra's Dream and that was awful. I'll check out Leon and Downfall as well.

I saw your list; the only film you need to watch is Bicycle Thieves. Also, there's an obscure French film called Human Resources that's not on the list but is really good. It's £3 on Amazon or you can watch it on Youtube (without subtitles)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Resources-DVD/dp/B000LE0TXS/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Trailer doesn't have subtitles but it's basically about a blue collar family, where the father works in the factory and the son gets an internship with the head office. It explores class, family and employer-employee relations. The politics is a little heavy-handed but it's still very good.

I really can't see The Hangover 2 being any good. Someone prove me wrong!

Hanna is the best acton thriller film I've seen since Bourne. Saoirse Ronan is a phenomenal actress; she will have an Oscar before she's 25, I guarantee it.

After seeing such mediocre crap as Sucker Punch, Arthur, Scream 4, it feels so refreshing to see such a great film. Seriously, go and see it.

and Phalanges, Scream 4 mediocre? well sadly I kinda agree with you, I really wanted it to be better but it was decidedly average imo, the end was slightly far out to say the least and I thought they could have used a lot of the characters more / developed them more

I passed my biochem exam

Celebrating by going to a musical tonight and seeing Thor on Sunday!

That sounds promising. Was just listening to the interview with the director on Kermode last night. Looking forward to seeing this when exams are over.

And you've changed your avatar.

oh right, looks cool,you're gonna going to that?

and Phalanges, Scream 4 mediocre? well sadly I kinda agree with you, I really wanted it to be better but it was decidedly average imo, the end was slightly far out to say the least and I thought they could have used a lot of the characters more / developed them more

If they are even thinking of another one (which they will be contemplating), they need to step back and evaluate the franchise and how the genre has progressed. And if they do that, the wise decision would be to move onto a new franchise with a fresh take on the genre. It would certainly be more interesting than another Scream film.

Talking of 'obscure' French films, you should check out Timecrimes. Brilliant concept, well, it's a dark time travel film. It's good.

But it's Spanish!

I'll put up a review of it soon but yeah, it was amazing. It's the first film that I've wanted to go back to the cinema and watch again immediately after it ended since The Bourne Ultimatum, it just felt so exciting and like a real breath of fresh air. It's in the top three films I've seen this year, along with Inside Job and 127 Hours. There hasn't really been anything else I've seen which comes even close to the quality of those yet.

I fancied a change, and given I've had more comments on my sig than any previous iteration by miles I thought it would be a bit cheap to change that so decided to go with the avatar. It's only going to be temporary as I don't like the animation as much; it's a bit too fast, although I still think it looks kind of cool. You not a fan?

I think that the fourth instalment was originally planned as the start of a new trilogy. Given that information, the whole story they went with seems really bizarre - I could perhaps see the purpose behind having a new survivor and core cast, but killing all of the kids so you're just left with the old three is just such a cheap move. I guess it's because of the backlash they got after the second film, but really doesn't actually care about the main cast anymore? Not to mention that getting Cox and Arquette in the same film together, and playing a married couple, is going to be impossible in the future.

If they were intent with doing the storyline they did, I think that would have been a pretty interesting way to end it.

But it's Spanish!

Not even Black Swan and True Grit? High praise indeed.

Nah, I love Portal (2). It's just when you're used to seeing a user with a particular avatar, if it changes it's strange. Like Cambo ditching his Pikachu avatar.

If you change your mind and want a slower animation (normal, 0.15 and 0.2):



EDIT: A shame each frame does not have a clear picture of the robot.

I found True Grit a little underwhelming to be honest. I knew I was forgetting some film, and while I can recognise that Black Swan was made with a lot of quality it didn't appeal to me as much as the other three, so I'd stand by my previous decision.

Never seen The Hole, I don't think. Is it any good?

I wish they didn't report or talk about every little aspect of the Dark Knight Rises. It's a bit too much, and too early. Everyone is analysing every insignificant detail, more so than you would for even Harry Potter.

Also Dark Tower seems to be having some trouble over its budget. Not sure if that is good or bad news.

I like how, and several website have also picked this up, this seems to be At the Mountains of Madness all over again. A film which should have been made. Tom Cruise, Del Toro and James Cameron with an excellent R-rated horror. But they didn't take the risk. I have the feeling that this worry in potential film projects has stemmed from the box office failure of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Brilliant film, but performed poorly commercially for various reasons posted in the last thread. Universal a bit reluctant now.

I think part of my appreciation for True Grit (acting and film quality aside) stems from the lack of Western films. Were you underwhelmed by the film itself (perhaps because of the hype), or the story (adapted from the book)?

The Hole (2001) is the kind of film I watched when I was about 12 and thought "OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST FILM EVER." It then gets taken to and watched at every sleepover and every other 12 year old girl concurs.

Then you watch it about 8 years later and you're like .

There was a good talk on the /filmcast a little while back about the state of film blogging, where everyone is fighting for traffic and by posting some dumb crap about Batman you're guaranteed hits so by the time the tiniest inconsequential bit of information comes out it's been reported to death. I generally try and avoid all information of future films beyond what a film is, who is making it and why. I'd rather speculate blindly and then actually experience the finished article afresh.

I'd hate to be working as an online film journalist. And the recent gutting of Cinematical by AOL shows that opinions and creativity aren't exactly valued any more. Film journalism online seems to be devolving into the very poor level of games journalism, which is very worrying.

I wouldn't particularly ascribe it to Scott Pilgrim. After all there have been far bigger flops before (SP made back 75% of it's costs, which isn't a total disaster when you consider it will probably go on to make a fair whack of money on home release). I actually really respect Universal's approach when marketing that film - there were a thousand slyer ways they could have sold it to try and get more people in and yet they stayed true to the film and accepted it's niche audience in a way that other studios probably wouldn't have.

I don't have access to games when I'm at Uni, but when I'm back I want to check it out, as it will probably be a bit cheaper and PSN might be alive again.

It pissed me off actually - I was playing a bit of Fallout 3 just before I went back and exploring the DLC as I'd never played it before. Was going through the Mothership Zeta content and got stuck on a bug which would have been a bit time consuming to fix so I didn't get to see the resolution of that storyline.

Just to add to all the Portal talk, I'm knitting an awesome weighted companion cube as a surprise for my friend

It goes without saying, your friend is lucky. I want a weighted companion cube.

You've got me interested in this discussion. I'm going to browse through their podcast release history and pick up a few interesting ones to listen to. Already spotted an entire episode dedicated to the soundtracks of 2010.

Sometimes, with podcasts, you get to the point where you're tuning in more for the people speaking than for the actual content being discussed. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I can relate to that (avoiding information), but it must be extremely hard to avoid information of future films. Going on a few prominent film websites and you have images and headlines plastered everywhere. Picking up the Empire or other film related magazine will always give you an in-depth look or preview into an upcoming film.

I wouldn't agree with that. Well, I don't know the situation with Cinematical but as a whole I wouldn't say that opinions and creativity are valued any more. If a certain site has went down that path, as many publications do, then that doesn't mean that opinion and creativity in itself isn't valued any more. If you can't find it with your favourite critics, prominent film websites then you'll find it in the blogs. Enthusiastic reviewers offering an unbiased opinion, the film journalists of tomorrow. There's a famous quote someone at Microsoft said about looking at the individuals who are the most critical and creative and running independent blogs. Something along those lines. And that can be applied to journalism. Smaller websites prevail in terms of creativity, opinion and overall quality. These websites tend to have a very core and active audience who do value what they put forward and contribute. Maybe it's just the mainstream that doesn't value opinion, and would rather have some regurgitated opinion put on a silver platter, all dumbed down.

Game journalism has always been shoddy, in the majority of cases. Can you even say that there are any legitimate journalists in the gaming industry? Information is so controlled that all you see is multiple stories on some press release or statement, over-reporting on the rumour mill or an in-depth analysis (done to death) of some event they've been to. We've asked Sony to comment on this issue is plastered on nearly every insignificant false rumour. And the response "We do not comment on rumours or speculation". But they still continue to churn out these rumours for the sake of gaining hits. Journalists are supposed to be separate, in practice, from the people and the stories they cover. In game journalism, you have them as best friends or advertising partners. A lot of websites are asked not to publish a review unless it is given a favourable review.

I want to see more of this. There have a lot of embarrassments, I remember the controversy with Jeff Gerstmann where GameSpot fired him for a negative review (it was clear from the editors who left later) because of the pressure put on by the advertisers, who just happened to be the publishers of said game . There are some game journalists who I respect and whose opinion I value. But the majority of gaming websites are poor. You have to remember though, the gaming industry (compared to the film industry) is still in its relative infancy.

If you're ever free (doubtful given exams), I'd recommend giving these articles a read and seeing what you think of them (agree or disagree). Coincidentally, I've had them bookmarked for a while:

The Soapbox: Game "journalism" is not journalism (yet)
The State of Game Journalism

My other main problem is with game reviews, the ratings and significance of numbers. This isn't so much a problem with films as it is with games. Fanboys are transfixed by the number rating that a reviewer will hand out. They skip past the entire written review (be it 2 or 3 pages) just to read out the number. This is reflected to some extent with Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic in films, but it seems worse when it comes to gaming. You shouldn't be attaching a number to a review. If people want to read a review, they should read the words. Not jump to the (arbitrary) number. The true value of the game or film is reflected in the words. That's my main gripes with gaming reviews. But a number rating is implemented anyway, so people can go and compare one game to another game which is totally different, but operates on the same rating scale. I don't have a problem with websites that take all the ratings, or derive a rating from the content of the review, and compile them together. But just this fixation that so many people have (including myself at some time in the past) with the number rating a single game will get.

Note: I think that's an incoherent ramble and I've taken the subject on a complete tangent. It's late and I'm tired. You can just ignore all that.

Hm, but I wish they would have taken the risk with At the Mountains of Madness. You have two strong people on board (Del Toro and James Cameron) and Tom Cruise. I'm not sure how well R-rated horrors perform, since they've sectioned off a large chunk of the audience, I'll hazard a guess at 'poorly'. But Del Toro seemed intent on making it R-rated or not at all. Now he's making some other substitute film.

Watch it on Youtube perhaps? A poor substitution, but a resolution nonetheless.

And there's always New Vegas (if you haven't tried it yet), improves upon Fallout 3 in nearly every way.

It was After Dark Episode 143, I believe. I usually listen all the way through based on the movie they chose and if it's something I'm not interested in I'll just listen to half of it (if I've got time of course).

It's a little different with Empire. I don't mind reading their previews as they almost never spoil details of the plot etc. Speaking of Empire, have you heard of their next issue as I know you're a Harry Potter fan? It's going to be dedicated to the Potter saga, with interviews from everyone involved.

Yes, there are independent blogs that put out good content - Mendelson's Memos is a particularly fine example. The problem is that the longer you do something for free, the harder it will be to find someone to pay you for it. Whereas sites which get the highest traffic will be those pandering to these vacuous crumbs of "news", which is so derivative. There are some exceptions where the sites feature a lot of freelance work, like /film and like cinematical used to.

I believe that you can judge a medium by it's journalism, which is why I think games have such a long way to go before they are a credible art form. I think the biggest issue with videogame reviewing isn't so much that they are numerical, but that the scale is so warped - a 7 is considered bad for god's sake. Not to mention the amount of partisan hackery that goes on, could you imagine if Roger Ebert wrote for a magazine called The Warner Bros. Viewer?

Also the reviews (from the little I've seen) seem obsessed with objectivity, and breaking it down into areas. You cannot review something as subjective as entertainment objectively, it just doesn't work. There's little mention of the game as a whole, and little detail outside consumer advice. The best reviewers should be talking about the context and the themes of the game, how it works and doesn't work and making their reviews more.

All that said, there's one website I think there's some games journalism. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called The Escapist. They publish a weekly online magazine around a certain theme and there really is some analysis and subjectivity and storytelling there, which is good to see. So yeah, check them out if you fancy it. Also there Extra Credits videos are just about the best content I've ever heard regarding games. There movie reviewer is pretty crap though.

Meh, I'll wait until I get back (and have inevitably forgotten all of the events leading up to that point ). I haven't bothered with NV yet, it looked too buggy to be enjoyable.