The Hunger Games
This second installment of the franchise was better than the first. Partially because the new director moved away from shaki-cam, but mainly because the movie at least tried to expand beyond a rote retelling of the books. Specifically, it at least made an effort to explore the world from other characters perspective (The books, which I love, are told entirely from the main character's point of view) which is the big opportunity the film has to differentiate, and build on, the books. Overall it still hues closely to the main narrative, but I still appreciated the effort to do something different.
Other than that there's not much else to say. Jennifer Lawrence is still great, the action scenes are a bit long, and its reasonably entertaining. Unlike the next film I saw.
The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug (probably misspelled but I don't care)
It's long.
So long.
So so long.
Look I liked the Lord of the Rings films, but I found the first installment of the Hobbit to be incredibly tedious and boring. However I saw it on a plane so I'm willing to admit that maybe not having the proper visual environment colored my opinion. Nope. This was equally as tedious and drawn out. Yes they spent alot of time and money on the visuals but perversely I found the much hyped 48 frames per second shooting style to be a detriment. Specifically, it makes everything on screen so clear that the falseness of the CGI really stood out for me, particularly in the daylight scenes. Of course had the film not been a slog this wouldn't have been such a bid deal, but at three hours long it was tough not to miss any flaws.
I'm sure I'm being too hard on this, and had it been shorter I probably wouldn't be so annoyed. Its not horrible, simply boring. Which, as I've said before, annoys me more than almost anything.
Oh well since we're in full on awards mode I'm hoping to see the following over the next few weeks to cleanse my pallet:
American Hustle
Wolf of Wall street
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
This second installment of the franchise was better than the first. Partially because the new director moved away from shaki-cam, but mainly because the movie at least tried to expand beyond a rote retelling of the books. Specifically, it at least made an effort to explore the world from other characters perspective (The books, which I love, are told entirely from the main character's point of view) which is the big opportunity the film has to differentiate, and build on, the books. Overall it still hues closely to the main narrative, but I still appreciated the effort to do something different.
Other than that there's not much else to say. Jennifer Lawrence is still great, the action scenes are a bit long, and its reasonably entertaining. Unlike the next film I saw.
The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug (probably misspelled but I don't care)
It's long.
So long.
So so long.
Look I liked the Lord of the Rings films, but I found the first installment of the Hobbit to be incredibly tedious and boring. However I saw it on a plane so I'm willing to admit that maybe not having the proper visual environment colored my opinion. Nope. This was equally as tedious and drawn out. Yes they spent alot of time and money on the visuals but perversely I found the much hyped 48 frames per second shooting style to be a detriment. Specifically, it makes everything on screen so clear that the falseness of the CGI really stood out for me, particularly in the daylight scenes. Of course had the film not been a slog this wouldn't have been such a bid deal, but at three hours long it was tough not to miss any flaws.
I'm sure I'm being too hard on this, and had it been shorter I probably wouldn't be so annoyed. Its not horrible, simply boring. Which, as I've said before, annoys me more than almost anything.
Oh well since we're in full on awards mode I'm hoping to see the following over the next few weeks to cleanse my pallet:
American Hustle
Wolf of Wall street
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
