Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within has to be one of the worst properties to ever bear the name of Final Fantasy. While the film's computer animation still holds up quite well even after 11 years, it isn't enough to save this absolute train-wreck of a film. What makes it so bad is not only due to the fact that it has virtually nothing to do with Final Fantasy in any capacity, the story itself is incredibly uninteresting and derivative of other, better science fiction novels and movies. Alien ghosts? Eight bafmodad spirits needed to save the world? Oh come on!
If that wasn't enough, no character displays anything that resembles an actual human emotion at any point. This is basically an extended 104 minute CG cutscene with CG models doing motions that have no bearing on anything. If an apple is rotten to the core, then by extension it is rotten to the surface no matter how pretty it might look.
Don't anyone ever see this movie. It isn't worth any amount of time at all. This would only be impressive if you knew virtually nothing about Final Fantasy or never consumed any science-fiction in your life.
Not to mention that the main character looks freakishly like Ben Affleck.
Was good, not great. I think it's a step below Basterds in a couple of ways. The first hour is pure magic, but then it goes on for a bit too long and Tarantino gets excessive with the violence and music cues at time. I think it would have been amazing, if it cut out the third act. Waltz and DiCaprio are fantastic, while Foxx and Washington are kind of meh.
Saw Glengarry Glen Ross. Excellent performamces all around and Jack Lemmon was still awesome as an old dude. Unfortunately I had trouble following half the movie because my family was bustling about and talking over all of the important scenes.
Saw Glengarry Glen Ross. Excellent performamces all around and Jack Lemmon was still awesome as an old dude. Unfortunately I had trouble following half the movie because my family was bustling about and talking over all of the important scenes.
I watched Total Recall, the 2012 version. I was a bit dubious, as I enjoyed the Verhoven version just plenty, and wondered what the point of a remake might be.
Turns out: I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of problems with it, but the earlier version had just as many problems. Just different problems. "The Fall" was stupid, but the aliens and blue sky on Mars in the original were stupid in different ways, and undercut the ambiguity of the movie.
What I mean is that Arnie was obviously still in recall for the end of the movie, and yet he looked too much like an action hero at the start. The story was saying one thing, but the casting another thing. In this remake, Colin Farrell looks convincing as a non-secret agent action star, and when he did take on that role, he played it more like a guy who didn't know what was really happening, unlike Arnie, who just took on his natural action hero persona.
And the question of "was it real" was better in this remake. While my prejudice from the first movie, that it was all Recall, was pretty strong, this set the balance better to fifty fifty. I think the dream sequence at the start made me think it was more likely to be real.
I think if you enjoyed the Arnie version, you'll enjoy this one just as much but for different reasons.
EDIT: Also I really liked how Kate Beckinsale became the main protagonist. Sharon Stone was good in the first version, but was kinda wasted. Then a typical "bad guy" came in to take over the chasing action bits. Beckinsale kicked ass, and it's good to see a strong female action role.
Was good, not great. I think it's a step below Basterds in a couple of ways. The first hour is pure magic, but then it goes on for a bit too long and Tarantino gets excessive with the violence and music cues at time. I think it would have been amazing, if it cut out the third act. Waltz and DiCaprio are fantastic, while Foxx and Washington are kind of meh.
I think Foxx's performance doesn't really pick up until the second half of the movie, but unfortunately that's also the part where DiCaprio shows up and the movie basically becomes about him and Waltz being the best actors in the movie (and also Sam Jackson just killing it.) So Foxx's performance just gets completely overshadowed.
But I would agree with the others and say that I liked Inglorious Bastards more.
I am watching "Sleepless in Seattle" for the first time 47 minutes in, it is really enjoyable and must say I miss the 90s if only because of this types of movies. It is funny, but it sends me to much simpler times. Thoughts at minute 50
The female main protagonist is kind of a creeper pre facebook era, and made me think "how interesting that it really does not matter the era, if someone has the means to be spy someone that ones does not even know then by all means lets do it, at work.
I will be the dissenting opinion I think and say I didn't really feel the length of Django Unchained at all.
In the middle it did feel a bit weird because it seemed like the natural end point should have been the big action scene at Candie Land. Everything builds up to what they're trying to do there, something happens that throws a wrench in the works, Dr. Schultz dies, and then Django has to try to come out on top in the end. If that scene had resolved how I would have expected it to, with Django victorious, I wouldn't have questioned it because it seems like a big action movie climax. After that kind of scene, the hero can just walk off into the sunset with his lady love. After I got a sense of what the actual direction of the movie was after that, though, I felt like that third act was entirely necessary and I enjoyed that too.
Even if you'd changed it so that Django is victorious after Candie is shot and violence breaks out, that leaves Django's character arc incomplete. He may have been a powerful force in that gun battle, but only after Schultz initiated the situation. Before then, he was mostly just sort of hanging back watching Waltz and DiCaprio act at each other (awesome, BTW). Also, throughout the entire movie to that point, most of Django's opportunities and actions are possible because of Schultz. Schultz frees him, Schultz puts him on a horse, Schultz gets him into bounty hunting and helps him become confident with a gun, Schultz teaches him to read, Schultz comes up with the plans that allow him to kill his former masters and get to his wife's plantation.
After Schultz dies, that's when the training wheels come off. Django has to get free of his chains again, this time without any help. There has to be a third act showing what Django can do when standing on his own, given the same resources that Schultz was privileged with from the beginning (skill, education, wit, and style). Otherwise it isn't really Django's story in the end.
Though, I will agree that the gun battles throughout felt indulgent, considering the real power of violence the movie has is in its portrayal of slavery. I took that as a given, though, because Tarantino.
Saw the newest Resident Evil movie. Honestly thought this one was worse than most of them. It definitely tried to bring itself back to video game references though.
Saw the Hobbit today in HFR. I liked the movie a lot more then I was expecting to. The HFR took a little getting used to, but made the movie look really good. I don't think it'll catch on as a widely done thing since it seems to make it impossible to hide any flaws in the movie.
If you saw it in HFR, you'd know; you'd see it on your ticket and you likely would have paid extra for it. Also, there were no showings of The Hobbit in 2D HFR.
I can't find my distance glasses. As such, going to the movies would be wasted on me, as everything would be ever-so-slightly fuzzy. Like, the difference between a JPG with a bit of anti-aliasing and a vectored image fuzzy.
If you saw it in HFR, you'd know; you'd see it on your ticket and you likely would have paid extra for it. Also, there were no showings of The Hobbit in 2D HFR.
Short of watching legacy prints, I basically never want to see a non-digital projection again in my life.
I want most every movie to be shot in 48fps/4k. Film flicker should be relegated to the same place in our cinema lexicon as film grain: an effect applied in post for an "old-timey" aesthetic.
I am also of the mind that Django was a good movie, with Foxx's performance one of the only weak points. It wasn't even bad. He just couldn't compare to the top-shelf talent that surrounded him.
Last year I began watching Green Lantern. I walked out after 25 minutes or so, as it was exactly not the kind of movie I wanted to watch. Last night I left it on in my room while doing other stuff. Under those viewing conditions, it did its job pretty well. It's still an utterly rubbish movie, but it has interesting and entertaining moments.
I also watched all but the very start of Megamind. I really enjoyed it! I was expecting a sub-par Incredibles rip-off. It turned out to be a rather sweet romantic comedy that just happened to be about super heroes and super villains. Importantly, it was both very funny and very touching, the most important points of a romantic comedy, and more successful in that genre than most others I've ever seen.
Translation: I have built my entire career on this one technology, and I never want to have to learn anything new. I want to do everything in my power to make sure that the new technology does not succeed so that my skills that pay my bills continue to pay those bills.
48 frames per second.. thats just too many frames. I mean really it's a lot. It's kind of greedy when you think about it. Like leave some frames for other people dude.
It's like I mean seriously, what do you think? The frame fairies are gonna come int he middle of the night and take half your frames so you need to have all those extra frames just in case? That's stupid as hell if you think that, movie makers.
Comments
Was good, not great. I think it's a step below Basterds in a couple of ways. The first hour is pure magic, but then it goes on for a bit too long and Tarantino gets excessive with the violence and music cues at time. I think it would have been amazing, if it cut out the third act. Waltz and DiCaprio are fantastic, while Foxx and Washington are kind of meh.
Turns out: I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of problems with it, but the earlier version had just as many problems. Just different problems. "The Fall" was stupid, but the aliens and blue sky on Mars in the original were stupid in different ways, and undercut the ambiguity of the movie.
What I mean is that Arnie was obviously still in recall for the end of the movie, and yet he looked too much like an action hero at the start. The story was saying one thing, but the casting another thing. In this remake, Colin Farrell looks convincing as a non-secret agent action star, and when he did take on that role, he played it more like a guy who didn't know what was really happening, unlike Arnie, who just took on his natural action hero persona.
And the question of "was it real" was better in this remake. While my prejudice from the first movie, that it was all Recall, was pretty strong, this set the balance better to fifty fifty. I think the dream sequence at the start made me think it was more likely to be real.
I think if you enjoyed the Arnie version, you'll enjoy this one just as much but for different reasons.
EDIT: Also I really liked how Kate Beckinsale became the main protagonist. Sharon Stone was good in the first version, but was kinda wasted. Then a typical "bad guy" came in to take over the chasing action bits. Beckinsale kicked ass, and it's good to see a strong female action role.
But I would agree with the others and say that I liked Inglorious Bastards more.
47 minutes in, it is really enjoyable and must say I miss the 90s if only because of this types of movies. It is funny, but it sends me to much simpler times.
Thoughts at minute 50
Though now I have to watch "An Affair to Remember" if only because of this.
http://www.thechiccurve.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sleepless-in-seattle-1.jpeg
and this:
http://www.movieposterdb.com/posters/09_08/1957/50105/l_50105_5bfeffef.jpg
Even if you'd changed it so that Django is victorious after Candie is shot and violence breaks out, that leaves Django's character arc incomplete. He may have been a powerful force in that gun battle, but only after Schultz initiated the situation. Before then, he was mostly just sort of hanging back watching Waltz and DiCaprio act at each other (awesome, BTW). Also, throughout the entire movie to that point, most of Django's opportunities and actions are possible because of Schultz. Schultz frees him, Schultz puts him on a horse, Schultz gets him into bounty hunting and helps him become confident with a gun, Schultz teaches him to read, Schultz comes up with the plans that allow him to kill his former masters and get to his wife's plantation.
After Schultz dies, that's when the training wheels come off. Django has to get free of his chains again, this time without any help. There has to be a third act showing what Django can do when standing on his own, given the same resources that Schultz was privileged with from the beginning (skill, education, wit, and style). Otherwise it isn't really Django's story in the end.
Though, I will agree that the gun battles throughout felt indulgent, considering the real power of violence the movie has is in its portrayal of slavery. I took that as a given, though, because Tarantino.
I want most every movie to be shot in 48fps/4k. Film flicker should be relegated to the same place in our cinema lexicon as film grain: an effect applied in post for an "old-timey" aesthetic.
I also watched all but the very start of Megamind. I really enjoyed it! I was expecting a sub-par Incredibles rip-off. It turned out to be a rather sweet romantic comedy that just happened to be about super heroes and super villains. Importantly, it was both very funny and very touching, the most important points of a romantic comedy, and more successful in that genre than most others I've ever seen.
Said every old person ever.