Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[innerSpaceman]

The Hobbit wasn't as bad as I feared, despite some really stupid and poorly-timed additions that are not from the book, and a really large plot hole featuring the made-up villain. I call shenanigans on that, because if you are going to make things up that Tolkien never wrote, you might want to make sure it doesn't leave a gaping plot hole that is patently absurd (not to mention lazy, as it could have been fixed with a camera shot or a line of dialogue).*

Other than that, though, when the film was sticking to the book, I found it a perfectly credible - if not spectacular - adaptation of The Hobbit. Not bad, and I have higher hopes for the remaining episodes. In fact, if there's ultimately an "un-extended" director's cut released for home video, it might be rather good.



* The invented bad guy, an albino orc named Azog, is shown harrasing and chasing our heroes on one side of an immense mountain range, the Misty Mountains. Our gang is then shown going through a series of intense adventures and adverse conditions crossing the mountains - - only to find that same bad guy magically and unexplainedly on the other side. WTF?


There was also little need for TWO prologues. The one featuring cast members from LotR was useless and should have been ditched. Oh, and one wholly-invented tangent backstory just as the plot gets going was bad enough. But to have a second one barely five minutes later really stalled the plot just as it was starting to pick up steam.

Another non-book introduction of LotR stars at Rivendell was also stupid. But the sour points were few, and everything else was decidedly Not Bad. I did not brave the 48fps version. The normal, 24fps 2-D film looked suitably pretty.

[innerSpaceman]

Though The Hobbit did not drag at nearly 3 hours, I found Django Unchained really breezed by at that same length. Full of mayhem, horror, violence and black comedy, it's the perfect Christmas Movie!

Quentin Tarantino is back in fine form with this revenge-plot send up of spaghetti westerns. Everyone in the cast was having a ball, and there are great performances by Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Also digging delightfully into the depths of Tarantino's beloved B-movie casts, the supporting players included the likes of Don Johnson, Franco Nero, Tom Wopat, Russ Tamblyn, Bruce Dern, Lee Horsley, James Remar, Michael Parks and Ted Neely! Bwahahah, I missed most of these, and will have to try and spot them on very warranted repeat viewings.


Tarantino did not overdo it on the dialogue scenes this time, which are perfectly interspersed with action bits. The film is brutal in its depiction of American slavery two years before the Civil War, but the violence is by-and-large comic-book gory, and comedy is paired nicely with action and suspense.


I loved it. Not Tarantino's best work, but that leaves it better than many other's. A whole lot of fun. Five stars from me.

[Alex]

I like Django Unchained for the most part. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the non action parts were working so well for me that I was kind of sad to see it descend into a John Woo gunfight.

Also had no problem with the length but will admit that when it became clear the movie was not ending when it first look like it would that I was concerned.

[Strangler Lewis]

High recommendations for Promised Land.

[Alex]

Saw Les Miserables. Liked it about as much as the stage production.

[Kevy Baby]

How did you like the stage production?

[Alex]

About as much as I liked the movie.

Both much less than I like the book.

They're fine, no complaints. But I'm not particularly engaged by the musical.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I love Les Mis. It is my favorite musical.

Saw the movie. Despite a few glaring flaws, the elements that are good are stellar (assuming you like the show to begin with). Jackman is powerful, the production is lovely, and the story and characters come through crystal clear.

The negative points (Crowe, HBC, SBC) were disappointing, but did not at all keep me from being enthralled.

However, I do not recommend seeing it before attending a party. Not exactly the best emotional state to put yourself in in preparation to celebrate.

[Alex]

I'd say it is one of the worst-filmed big budget movies I've seen in a long time. Everything being in extreme closeup kind of rendered breaking the confines of a stage pointless.

Therefore I give Russell Crowe the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he just had trouble singing with a camera up his nose. It was like Tom Hooper figured that rather than using the opportunity of film to expand the stage he'd instead use it to make the audience feel like they were sitting in the front row.

And, Anne Hathaway was very good. But if she wins an Oscar because she sang one song reasonably well I'll be disappointed. I know the precedent is set by Jennifer Hudson, but still. (Also sad to learn that even in heaven she didn't get her hair back.)

Castle in the Clouds and Master of the House are my two favorite numbers and they both came of kind of flat in the movie. Things did start to click in the last 45 minutes or I'd have ended up hating it a fair amount.

Oh, one other minor distraction. By the end, Hugh Jackman was looking an awful lot like Michael Landon on Little House. Especially the one scene where he comes out in an undershirt, wearing suspender. "Who am I? I'm Charles Ingalls!"

Spoiler:

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oh, agreed for sue on Master of the House. By far the biggest disappointment for me. Completely sucked all the energy and humor out of it. Bleh.

I had been warned nasal-cam, but was totally okay with it. I suppose because when I heard about it the first thing I thought was, "Well, at least it's not like the Phantom movie where the cast was so bad at emoting that they shot all of the heavy emotional song solos from a helicopter so you didn't have to look at their faces." Being in their face worked for me in a show that's so dependent on the individual characterizations and their intense emotional struggles.