Film Fanatics - Chat Thread II

I think it looks great

Some initial Green Lantern reviews aren't great. Read the one IGN gave it - 2/5 stars... was quite a funny read too

I'm almost certain Ebert will slate it, not that I really care what he thinks or anything... I'm still anticipating it though, I think it looks great

Please explain how it looks "great", tbph.

I think it looks good meh each to their own

I remember some of the backlash at the first trailer of it. Pleasing comic book fanboys must prove a real headache for filmmakers, there's no middle ground - they'll either really hate or love the film, if even just from watching a trailer

The first trailer was a complete travesty, tbh They actually apologised for it, said it wasn't really representative.

I'm quite looking forward to it, and I say that as a massive fan of the GL comics.

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=135354



And it's from Kim Newman who is a really good reviewer.

Oh dear.

Well, I'll still watch it so that I can have something to grumble about.

I'm so glad Nintendo did this.

I'm so glad Nintendo did this.

For me, the biggest difference between playing games and watching films is in the way that you relate your opinion. With games, you tend to justify it, while with films, you tend to explain it. As that's about as clear as mud, I'll explain: take the original Project Gotham Racing, when it was released on Xbox. It had rave reviews and was extremely popular. I played the game and I didn't like it. I didn't like it because I'm not particularly fond of driving games and the whole "earn loads of kudos to buy a new car" concept doesn't really appeal. That's me justifying my opinion though; I'm telling you I didn't like it and giving reasons for this, rather than detracting from the game itself. The games I do actually rubbish tend to be for the reasons you detail: clunky controls and the like, which is almost always a commonly held view. Films, on the other hand, are a different matter. Take Piranha 3D. I thought it was awful. When I relate this to someone, I explain why it was awful: the acting was atrocious, the concept and plotline were ridiculous etc. The salient difference is this: with games, you're told someone didn't like a game without this taking away from the game itself (obviously only in the case of games considered to be good), whereas with films, someone will tell you that they didn't like the film, through rubbishing elements of the film itself

Comparing one rating to another rating will always happen though. It's in people's natures to compare one game with another game, so they're also likely to compare review scores. It's the same as people comparing films. They're almost totally different, but they'll compare them on the basis of it being loosely in the same genre with a similar-ish plot.

There is a problem with this system, though. As you mentioned in a previous post in this thread, games represent a significant investment. If you have a few games released around the same time in a similar genre - i.e. Just Cause 2, Saints Row 2 and GTA 4, and they're all considered to be "buy it" worthy, the 'casual' gamer has to invest significant time in reading the reviews and differentiating the differences between them to decide which he'd most like to buy. Or be prepared to fork out a lot of cash for all three.

I dislike the star system. It's fine in the context of a magazine or site, for example when 4/5 stars means "good", but the problem comes when the system is quoted on the back of a game case or DVD box. If you're familiar with the publication/site, you'll know what 4/5 stars means. If you're not, it can suggest something is better than it is. Likewise, this leads to the danger of dumbing down as it leads to films and games producers using the publications/sites which accredit their work with the most stars. This, in reality, leads to a proliferation of star ratings from The Sun and Nuts magazine.

Look at how this entire conversation spawned; Akaten posted that he thought X-Men was a 7.3, which is pretty hard for people to decipher. However when he they went on in a later post to explain some of the film's failings, I think we can all agree that was a far more interesting post than a number.

One thing I will say is that I do disagree that you should break up the elements of a game when reviewing it. This is akin to how a poor game will treat story elements, by divorcing it from the gameplay and dumping it all into cutscenes. A good game integrates the story into every aspect of the game. If you were to break a film review down into areas such as cinematography, editing, acting, direction, script, etc., it would be wholly derivative because all of the elements are interwoven. This is something that I think many videogame reviewers do not appreciate.

You both raise many more interesting points, but I figured rather than spending four hours addressing everything I'd use much less time to try and move sidelong into the conversation.

I think it all depends on how many games you get through. If you play a lot of games, it's the same as watching a lot of films: sooner or later, you'll come across one you don't like.

Generally, games are much more about having fun and being as accessible as possible. There are, however, many different varieties of games, and not just in genres. There are more or less involved games, solo or MMORPG games etc and this leads to a difference between games: there are the pick-up-and-play games like GTA or Mario Kart as a distinct entity from games such as Fallout, which require significant time to be invested to understand what's going on. By the same token, there are cutscene-laden graphic orgies and rudimentary looking games that are all about the enjoyment factor.

Elements of a game are less inextricable interwoven than those of a film, though. I'm not saying that you should separate these elements in the space of the review to the point that they're separate headlines. I think you should address them in the same way one addresses various "headings" within an essay: dealing with each in turn. They're distinct enough to merit this treatment. Take the graphics of a game, this is an element that you can certainly see in and of themselves, rather than in the context of a plotline.

You address the controls as part of the gameplay, but that's a distinct element that you can rate in and of itself. If the controls are slick and let you do exactly what you want to do, you can give them four or five out of five stars. If they're clunky and leave you blind, or where you don't wish to be, you can reflect this in the ratings too. The review space gives you the chance to expand on this; explaining why/where they're good/bad.

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I want to watch that

still haven't seen it .. despite knowing about it for some time now, I even know the plot

Episode 9 was unbelievably good, I was so impressed with everything about it (except one minor niggle about the dwarf's new lover, who was incredibly badly written compared to how nuanced everyone else is). But apart from that, a brilliant way to spend an hour. It really feels like the investment for the first half of the season is being paid off, which is good. Also, the scenes have got a lot better as the series has progressed as well - just look at how good the Khalesi scenes are now compared to earlier episodes where they were utterly uninspiring. Good stuff.

I'm having a lot of fun with all of this new metadata on my films. Sorting by year released is very interesting... any guesses on the oldest film I have?

Beginning a mission to rewatch all the Harry Potters before July 15th. Starting with Philosopher's Stone tonight. Seemed like a good idea when it came to me but I feel it may just proceed to anger me.

X Men First Class was quite possibly the most fun I've had at the cinema since Inglourious Basterds. Fantastic stuff, despite being a popcorn movie.

I'm in Oxford, so it was quite fun sniggering at some of the locations and the fact that one of the colleges became a pub.

Still, thought it was an awesome film. Up there with the first one. Bloody good soundtrack too.

And the whole cinema laughed when:



Although something that didn't sit quite right with me was:



Michael Fassbender =

Is it not the summer?

I love that about reviews. I mean going back to a review and having seen the film, and reading a completely different interpretation into it. There should be more of that. Especially in cases where a film or narrative is fairly unambiguous, a different interpretation on that is always interesting. Lets face it, with ambiguity and mystery, you're always going to have rich speculation and interpretations anyway. But with fairly ordinary films, an interesting interpretation is just as good. On giving away too much, it's probably harder with films which are concept heavy like Source Code or Inception or ones whose narrative relies on a twist.

So do you just look at ratings or a general consensus (word of mouth, Metacritic/Rotten Tomatoes) for an overview or is there a particular source you know to be spoiler free?

I'm not particularly bothered about film reviews. With video games, reviews matter a lot to me. But with films, I just really want verification it's not terrible ie Sucker Punch.