Movies

[West]

The proper way to find the acoustic center is to use the ceiling lights for the X axis and speakers for the Y axis

[West]

Well, I did say "optimistic", not "excited" Still would have rather seen Tom Welling.

Oz looked good, indeed.

The Hobbit... eh... I dunno. It looks like what I didn't like about the others: a gorgeous movie betrayed by campy CGI and faithful to a fault (too long, too much detail).

Bourne Legacy... I probably won't see. I liked the Ludlum books when I was 9 or 10, but they kind of got repetitive, and it always felt like Conspiracy Theory was a better Bourne than Bourne was itself.

[West]

Snow White & The Huntsman

Let me preface this with two observations. I like movies like this -- I really dug Red Riding Hood. It is what it is, so I'm not going to get into how faithful it was to canon or how realistic it should have been. Next, the K-Stew thing sort of colored my watching: did I notice certain things because of that, or were they that glaringly obvious?

Kid Friendly
A little scary and gory for under 10. Minor sexuality*.

The Good
The special effects kick major ass. There's a scene in a faerie glade that is worth watching repeatedly, it's that gorgeous and full of things happening all over that are each just wow. The shard warriors the Queen conjures are spectacular. The story is well done, except for a few things. The scenery is great.

The Bad
Where to begin?

It's. Too. Freaking. Long. This movie is like stop-n-go traffic: moments of pure joy framed by long stretches of boring frustration.

It's glaringly obvious (see second observation, above) the director has a major hard-on for Stewart. Long, long sequences of her standing around looking slowly this way and that, chest heaving, and opening her mouth slightly. I'd even go so far as to say that the director intentionally, subtly, emasculated The Huntsman. This is Chris freaking Hemingsworth - Thor. But it's not. It's some dude who pussy foots around, mumbles lines, and wears baggy clothing and hangs his head. It's actually hard to believe it's the same actor. Any sexual or even romantic tension between Snow and Hunt is completely missing.

The final assault on the Queen's castle is just retarded. Anyone with passing familiarity with castle warfare would see immediately that they all should have been slaughtered. An "army" of about 100 rides through trebuchet and arrow fire down a long beach, relatively unscathed, and then mills around in front of a closed portcullis. A few minutes after it's raised and they begin riding in, then a few bowls of cold (yes, cold) oil is dumped on one or two of them as they ride in. Urrrrgh.

Overall, I'm left with the impression this could have been a lot better than it was. Very disappointing. It's not worth watching, even if you're a big Stewart or Hemingsworth fan. Even if you're a Charlize fan -- and she does a good job -- you'd be better off watching Aeonflux again.

* The King kisses Theron's neck and upper (completely clothed) chest while she monologues. Fortunately, by the time my daughter asked what he was doing, she'd stabbed him and I simply replied "Choking. He's dying."

[Key]

Dredd

Well lets start by saying that compared to the original (which was so bad it was good) this takes fantastic shooting movies to a new level.

What I liked

The music was good.
The costumes were fantastic.
The story line was good.
We actually got to see more of the hive city. - Yes the majority of the story was confined in one building during a lock down, but it was a serious homicide-drug bust.

There were lots of gun flashes, and you didn't have stalone's pause "I am....the law"
Judge Rookie Anderson - and her psy-powers of awesome

What I didn't like

There was one track of music that had the ieeeeeeeeeee of florescent lights in the background the entire time.
The slomo fall that had me cringing


Personal verdict
Well according to various other sites it got a good rating, and I personally loved it. But then I've always been a fan of Judge Anderson and this was her story. That being said I had a blast and it was worth seeing it in 3D, and I don't like 3D that much.

[MichaelH]

Looper

Just saw this one the other day, and I have to say I was extremely impressed. It was a time travel movie that managed to be clever about it without making my head hurt. They didn't waste a lot of time on technobabble, but instead focused more on the characters and plot. The actors all give good performances, and the action is pretty good too. I thought I had predicted how the movie would go, but it ended up surprising me. I'd definitely recommend it.

Just a warning, though, it isn't kid-friendly at all. It features one of the creepiest death scenes I can remember.

[West]

Oh wow, I was just getting ready to write on on Looper myself.

For me, it was the classic showdown between viewer versus movie.
- On the one hand, I felt like I wasted enough time on it
- On the other hand, I want to let people know it sucked and have to spend time on a review

I'll start by saying I love time travel movies. I'll go see any of them. That being said, I'm a time travel movie critic. So hopefully Michael won't think this is an indictment of his enjoyment, but me being picky

This movie has three major flaws:

The first is that it sacrifices any attempt at logic or sense to do cool time travel effects.
The first major error they commit is letting whatever affects the past self affect the future self; namely, injuries. The paradox here is that for time travel to *not* be a paradox, the traveler has to leave their "flow"; what affects the past cannot affect them unless it's a "closed loop" versus "change past change future" travel movie.
* In a closed loop, whatever they do in the past is already factored in. A perfect example is 12 Monkeys. The traveler does not change the past because he is part of the past.
* In a "change past change future" movie, you run into the paradox of the past changing whether or not the traveler will ever go back at all. This movie blatantly ignores this paradox.
The second part is that they do DUMB SHIT. They cut up this guy to lure his future self to his own death, when they could have just killed the guy and made future guy disappear -- but they wanted to show "look how cool this shit is".

The second major flaw is that it wants to have a conscience.
The movie went from vapid entertainment to a screeching halt of "watch this guy grow up and be a man with a conscience" which dragged the entire second half of the movie into a morass of lethargic wannabe introspection and evolution. It was boring and trite.

The third major flaw is that it is just plain fucking stupid.
The makeup on Joseph Gordon-Levitt to make him look like Bruce Willis was horrible. He looked like he was wearing lipstick for half the movie, and in other parts the lighting made his makeup look waxy. They beat you over the head with plot points that are so obvious it's painful. Apparently time travel is ONLY available to the mob. The female lead spends 2-3 days with JGL who basically wanders out of a corn field and then spreads her legs. Like, literally. No development, just straight to random booty call with strange hitman vagrant. Because, you know, that's the only real purpose to have a female character.

Anyway.

I could go on, but you probably get the idea. It sucked. I'd honestly rather watch Timecop again.

If you've got an urge to see Bruce Willis do time travel, watch 12 Monkeys. It's a hell of a lot better.

[West]

Dredd

Loved it. Thanks, @Key for reminding me this was out -- I caught the last day my local theater was showing it in 3D.

This was a beautiful fusion of action with lush cinematics. There were scenes that were so beautiful and detailed I was reminded of The Cell, but it wasn't overdone. The action paced well, and the character development was really well done. If you're into future dystopic action movies, or a fan of Judge Dredd, this is as good as it gets.

I'll probably watch it again.

I literally only have one complaint -- I think it would have been cool if the final narration (which was a repeat of the opening narration) had been done by Anderson.

Olivia Thirlby rocks the short hair