The Film Thread

[chrisp65]

to expand a bit, and I'm really not looking for a fight or anything - it's really nowhere near my field of expertise to get into a tiff over

 

but here goes:

 

A little research tells me that I've just watched the second of three films, I saw it in 2D, on a TV, via Netflix. It looks like there is a game - but its a lego game (if that makes any difference).

 

From the off, there was a strange highlight around characters in the foreground. Nothing terribly dramatic, but odd in a film I understood they spent a spectacular amount of money on. Then, about 15 minutes in there was a sequence where some bees fly into shot from close range, buzz about a bit and then fly off in to the distance. They had no part in the story whatsoever (unless I missed some nuance) and at this point, 15 or so minutes in I began to notice things more and more that didn't obviously help the film along.  The 'levels' statement is exactly what I meant but had clearly poorly articulated. I don't know much about computer games (apologies, it's not snobbery, I just drifted away from computer games when they put colour over asteroids) but that's what it looked like to me.

 

There was a scene with barrels, jumping in and out of barrels killing baddies. It had one barrel bouncing along a line of baddies and then spinning and then had a (hobbit? dwarf?) character jumping in and out of it. I was half expecting some coins to appear or Mario to overtake them.

 

Then there was a scene where two characters ended up sliding down some chutes in the mine and were in mine carts suspended on wires. They didn't actually do anything, so I guessed that was another level in a game. Similarly, another character rides down a flow of molten gold in a wheelbarrow.... Levels in a game.

 

Elsehwere, when the wizard guy was talking there were dandelion seeds (or somesuch similar thing) blowing around for no obvious reason other than to remind us it was 3D (was my guess). 

 

All in all, quite distracting, I found myself watching the screen for quirky shit, rather than following the story.

[Chindie]

Theres nothing personal in this, just that that post just raised an irritation I thought worth bringing up

 

Again, I'm not an apologist or particular fan of the Hobbit films (they're fine in and of themselves as films, but have flaws and should have been better than they ultimately were), but they are the films we're discussing and provide a good basis for the point I raised.

 

The glow around the characters Chrisp65 raises is a side effect of the use of CGI in the films. The Hobbit uses a lot of CGI, and effectively got used a bit of a tech demo in places for the director - he was messing around with various technologies (3d, higher frame rates, etc) he'd not used before in the film, and the glow is side effect of that. It's a valid criticism of the Hobbit that it uses too much CGI, and not all of it is quite up to the standard you'd hope for - it's a criticism I'd make myself. But thats a bit different to implying 'it's videogamey and therefore bad'. The bees are in the book (Beorn, the giant man who can change into a bear, keeps bees) and the film uses them as an excuse to do a bit of cinematography showing off the 3d (if you're watching in 3d). If you're not... does it really affect your viewing? Shots like this existed before 3d.

 

The levels thing has been raised a couple of times. Laying my cards on the table I do not get this at all and it's struck me as something a critic says to back up them wanting to use 'it's like a videogame' as a criticism of a movie. The film follows the locations and settings of the book pretty accurately, and whilst it uses them for some set pieces that aren't in the book (because the book isn't trying to be a modern day family action movie - the barrel ride happens in the book but doesn't get exaggerated to the extent the director chose to) it doesn't add much that Tolkien doesn't already have there. Would you call the book videogamey? That has the same 'levels'. Would you call the original Star Wars videogamey? It has all the same 'levels' as it hops about planets, and it has the same addition of set piece action moments. How about Indiana Jones? That boulder is just like something out of Crash Bandicoot... You might argue that the set pieces are what makes it videogamey, but as Indiana Jones shows us games tend to be quite derivative when it comes to action set pieces and tend to nick things from films, and I cannot recall a single game that has anything that would come close to resembling the barrel ride scene of the Desolation of Smaug.

 

You often see this criticism of populist blockbuster action movies these days, that they're like videogames. The implication is always that being like a game means the film is crap, and by association that games are also lowbrow crap. It's just snobbery, and it's lazy criticism. It's always used as shorthand for 'rubbish' with obviously CGI laden movies, when the use of CGI is about all that ties the mediums together. I've only ever felt any connection to a video game in a film in one particular movie, and funnily enough it's one I can't recall any critic making the connection to. It was largely, and deservedly so, critically lauded. That film was Inception.

 

Inception brought games to mind for me in 2 respects. Firstly, it quite literally does have levels in it. It's a foundation of the films structure, that the characters pass through levels of a dream, all with their own particular features. And secondly, the entire film plays like a tutorial section of a game - every piece of dialogue in the film is discussing the rules or explaining the rules of 'the game' the film makes. And neither of these points tell you anything about the films worth or quality, except insofar as it tells you all the dialogue is exposition. Saying Inception is like a videogame doesn't critique it, it says little to nothing about it's merits.

 

You could perhaps see me, based on my tastes, as an inverted snob. I don't like a lot of traditional art house movies, a lot of stuff you'll see on lists from people who are cineliterate (or wish to look so) (saying that art house movies are changing and I've found more to like in recent times, but for the sake of argument I refer to more traditional arty stuff - the inverse of the summer blockbuster in essence).  But I wouldn't imply that the latest indie critics darling is crap because it bears more than a passing resemblance to a plot from soap with the indulgence turned up to 11, or that it has the merits of an A Level students play with melodrama out it's arse. If it's well made I can appreciate the art form even if it's not to my particular tastes - because I don't like it or don't 'get' it doesn't make it inherently bad. Take Dr Who - I don't get it, and I think there are valid criticisms of it in some ways being 'bad', but it doesn't mean it's somehow worthless as an art form or piece of entertainment.

 

That was the irritation. 'This is made for an audience that likes 3d and videgames, so it's bad', or 'this has elements of 3d and lots of CGI, it's like a videogame, it's bad'. There is always this implication in there, belittling both the film in question and an entire cultural medium, and by association the audience for that. As said, it's snobbery that I find quite irritating. It's not valid or nuanced criticism, it brings nothing to the table but derision.

 

As said, we're talking about the Hobbit films here and I don't think those films are particularly good - I've watched them all, I roundly enjoy them but can quite easily notice their flaws (too much CGI, a lot of it sitting somewhat uneasily in the film, too much padding, some dodgy dialogue and acting, tone problems, cinematography issues, etc etc) so I'm not saying these, or any films like them are masterpieces... but they aren't like videogames, and even if they were, that doesn't necessarily mean, as the shorthand now goes, that they are bad - it doesn't mean anything. It's just a way of deriding a movie without bothering to give some thought to it, and increasingly we see this sort of snobbish attitude and it's quite annoying (again I'm not saying that this is personally what Chrisp65 is doing but his post raised it, so to speak).

[snowychap]

Then, about 15 minutes in there was a sequence where some bees fly into shot from close range, buzz about a bit and then fly off in to the distance. They had no part in the story whatsoever (unless I missed some nuance)...

Isn't that pretty much the point in your own words?

[pooligan]

American Guerilla In The Philippines     (1950) Was drawn to this movie by the title of it,as i spend all my time these days between Brum and Manilla .The movie turned out to be ok,certainly worth a look if your into war films. 6/10 for me

[chrisp65]

 

Then, about 15 minutes in there was a sequence where some bees fly into shot from close range, buzz about a bit and then fly off in to the distance. They had no part in the story whatsoever (unless I missed some nuance)...

Isn't that pretty much the point in your own words?

 

 

Well, yes. If the bees that do nothing are in the book that I haven't read, then it's me that has missed the point. I really wasn't trying to be mischievous.

 

I'm not a big film buff, I'm certainly not art house and all that. The film looked odd - some of the reason why has now been explained. Some of my comment, re the gaming bit has clearly been raised before. I genuinely wasn't copying old established argument to be clever, I just thought the barrels scene bopping off baddies was really poor. I actually thought perhaps I hadn't got an 'in' joke.

 

But it was a one line question. With a question mark at the end of it. 

[mjmooney]

I think the Hobbit films WERE designed for 3D, which is precisely why I watched them in that format, and wouldn't bother with the 2D versions. They were novelties, Christmas treats, to be treated differently from regular films.

[Zatman]

Exodus was pretty boring considering the cast they had. a waste

[darrenm]

I fully agree with chrisp. I watched all 3 hobbits in the cinema in 3d and there were lots of things which were there purely for 3d effect, but don't really work very well. I found myself wondering while watching the 3rd why it looked so fake and remembered that some 3d is added post production so assumed it was the case with this. I'm a bit surprised it was shot in 3d, it all just looks fake in a way that lots of other 3d stuff doesn't.

But I think that's a problem related to how peter Jackson shoots his films. The entire lotr and hobbit trilogies have just looked like video games to me. I don't really understand why this would be snobbish, and to be honest I didn't read chindie's post because I don't have enough time, but it's just a personal preference that they look a bit odd.

[kurtsimonw]

I wish games looked half as good as that.

[darrenm]

The battles were like fleur de lys wallpaper. Looks all random at first glance but you can repeating patterns everywhere. It reminded me of all the nvidia and ati tech demos from years ago when they started doing lots of new shaders and they would often do battles to show how shaders could be used for lots of repetition.

[Ads]

I'm not sure. Soldiers wearing uniform armour, standing in uniform formations will make for repetition. I thought the Orcs looked noticable more ragged than the Dwarves and Elves.

 

As for the series, its very enjoyable. Doesn't hit the heights of the Lord of the Rings, but its very entertaining nonetheless.

[villa4europe]

i thought the CGI for the battle of the 5 armies wasnt as good as the CGI for helms deep or minas tirith 

 

i agree with darrenm, it seemed like far less character models, far more repetition, taking what ads said, far more armour which depending on how you look at it either makes it easier to get a bit lazy with it or makes it harder to make anything stand out, personally im going with the lazy option, look at the bit on the trailer where the 5 trolls with catapults (around 1:34) they're the same character models just with a slight delay in their action to make them look individual, thats the CGI for the battle in a nutshell, its really disappointing and personally i think the most disappointing thing is that the battle isnt good enough to justify in length, which means the whole trilogy idea cant be justified, the 2nd film with smaug's screen time they pulled off, the 3rd film with the battle they didnt

 

[trekka]

Watched "The Interview" online today.  At first I thought it was awful.  It got better once they actually set foot in NK though and I really enjoyed the ending. 

[Meath_Villan]

Leap year.....-10/10......what a pile of horse shite

[kurtsimonw]

Nightcrawler was great. Not a fan of Gyllenhaal, but he was superb. Really impressed.

[Wainy316]

The thing that annoys me in The Hobbit films (and LOTR) is the Orc to goodie death ratio. They look all menacing but are popped off easier than a goomba.

[AVFCforever1991]

The thing that annoys me in The Hobbit films (and LOTR) is the Orc to goodie death ratio. They look all menacing but are popped off easier than a goomba.

 

Quality vs quantity...

[Rodders]

Midnight Cowboy - Dustin Hoffman amazing performance

Film itself less so. Don't get classic film appellation. Wasn't bad, just not much mire than diverting entertainment really.

[pooligan]

In Which We Serve   (1942)  This is the first film i can recall watching as a kid. In my opinion it is one of the all time classic war films and god only knows how many times i have watched it .In my book a 8/10 

[MakemineVanilla]

In Which We Serve   (1942)  This is the first film i can recall watching as a kid. In my opinion it is one of the all time classic war films and god only knows how many times i have watched it .In my book a 8/10 

 

A very fine film.

 

I always group it together with other finely wrought propaganda films of the time, like: Went The Day Well? and The Way Ahead, which I have particular affection for.