Movies you just recently watched

[stan423321]

No. I kind of see your point, but for me, as long as there is no stylistic clash between CGI and actors, it works.

[Adsolution]

Which doesn't necessarily make it good CGI, indeed.

[Keane]

Yes it is! Go grab your chance if you want to watch it. It's awesome, and if I'm not mistaken, one of the producers who made the movie also produced 2012.

2012 was not a good movie.

The special effects gave me chills though.

The reason I don't like the movie is because of a certain director: Roland Emmerich. 90% of his work is something destroying things. Basically, you could just get a couple of his movies and then choose how you want to see things get destroyed, and 2012 is nothing more then one of those options. Special effects are cool, but they don't make a movie. Just get a bunch of people to scream and run, add some effects, and poof! Your movie is ready.

[Adsolution]

I saw Oz last night.

Well, it looked nice. The visuals were absolutely beautiful. Other than that, the characters were dumb, the story was dumb, the whole movie was dumb, and it was classic live-action Disney cliché. I don't understand why it's so hard for family films nowadays to just stay in their own damn universe. The original Wizard of Oz was simple, magical, and it took itself lightheartedly yet seriously. This 'prequel' was just littered with slapstick buddy humour, as if it was literally scared shitless to be the slightest bit sentimental.

Though the movie wasn't that bad. It was okay, in my opinion. I'll give it credit that while it was is dumb, I liked the premise of the story: A magician uses his conning ability for good, and finds greatness in the kingdom of Oz. The idea fits right along side the original Wizard of Oz to a tee - this is all despite the fact that the movie was executed something mediocre.

If there is one scene I really liked from this film though, it was when Oz had the original screen-on-smoke machine built. That caught me off guard and made me smile and nod with satisfaction. Now if only the rest of the film had more intelligent and amazing moments like this.


This film was okay, it was fair. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. You know what really deserves my hate? The Wicked musical. What a load of garbage it is, and I saw it in New York five years ago and again last year at a sister-school. The songs are irritating, and the whole thing is as shallow as Scrooge's fabled grave. It's just some overhyped annoying musical trash with no substance whatsoever. It's a shame too, since I decided to read the original Wicked novel after seeing the play, and it still remains one of my favourite books of all time. It's dark, witty, just a little kinky, and verbally entrancing. Sure, some of the more mature themes would have to be watered down to make it an all-ages Broadway production, but for the love of God, Stephen Schwartz must have fucked his mother nine months prior to its conception.

I would take Oz: The Great and Powerful over the Wicked stage production any day.

[Snagglebee]

I remind watching 2012, I think they kinda exagerated with the flood thing.

hmm. I saw this movie on a plane trip.

[spiraldoor]

Stephen Schwartz must have fucked his mother nine months prior to its conception.

[Adsolution]

I need to stop writing those mini-reviews in the middle of the night.

[Keane]

I liked Oz...

This film was okay, it was fair. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. You know what really deserves my hate? The Wicked musical. What a load of garbage it is, and I saw it in New York five years ago and again last year at a sister-school. The songs are irritating, and the whole thing is as shallow as Scrooge's fabled grave. It's just some overhyped annoying musical trash with no substance whatsoever. It's a shame too, since I decided to read the original Wicked novel after seeing the play, and it still remains one of my favourite books of all time. It's dark, witty, just a little kinky, and verbally entrancing. Sure, some of the more mature themes would have to be watered down to make it an all-ages Broadway production, but for the love of God, Stephen Schwartz must have fucked his mother nine months prior to its conception.

I would take Oz: The Great and Powerful over the Wicked stage production any day.

I'm going to be seeing the show in a while from now in Dallas. Honestly, I don't expect it to be anything great, but this sounds like I'm in for a real treat.

[Adsolution]

Well, if you're looking for something truly insulting, you're not going to find it in the play. The most insulting thing about it would probably be its disgrace to the source material, and maybe to your sense of wonder as well.

[BzzitTheMoskito]

So I saw G.I Joe Retaliation recently, nothing too outstanding, but good nonetheless.

[Tobbe]

I hope it was better than Rise of Cobra, which was terrible.

[Adsolution]

I saw The Croods last night, and I was exceptionally surprised. I can probably say that it was one of the best animated movies I've seen in the past decade. It felt like a true adventure with great characters, absolutely stunning visuals, super creative ideas, immersive action scenes, and perfect pacing. There were no fourth-wall jokes, no puns, no pop-culture references (except when Grug was coming up with 'ideas,' which worked, just timing-wise and such). It was all completely in-universe, and it was wonderful.

Another total oddity with this film is that - and I find this to be a very rare occurrence - the second half is better than the first. The first half was good indeed, but the second half is really where the brilliance starts to shine through. The characters begin to move through rougher landscapes, they're encountering natural disaster at every turn, there are many times in which the characters show that they are genuinely afraid that they could get crushed or fall to their deaths, and the scene where Grug throws his family across the gorge is especially well done.

I think one of the reasons I liked this movie so damn much is because it reminds me of The Land Before Time (my favourite film of all time). The concept is very similar (they live in a wreck, scowering the landscape in search for paradise), the cast of characters is different yet shares a resemblance, they come across very similar dangers (including tar), and the artstyle, colour-scheme and atmosphere share something alike. Even though The Croods is a bit more light-hearted and aimed at more of a general audience than the aforementioned film, it succeeds so very much because of its wonderful creativity and sincerity; I can't even begin to describe how creative Grug's flying machine is. - This is contrary to my views on Toy Story nabbing from The Brave Little Toaster (another one of my favourite films), because I thought that Toy Story did quite a poor job of it.

Nicolas Cage is perfect here too. His role ranges from humourous to dramatic, to absolutely bat-shit crazy. Srsly, 9.9/10, would highly recommend. This film has that magic that I feel has been largely absent from almost every animated movie in recent history, including Wreck-It Ralph. This is something I'll be ordering on a nice physical DVD once it's available.

[GNineify]

Inglorious Basterds. That ending was brilliant.

[Haruka]

@Ad Funny enough I enjoyed the trailer that has been passing around here, and I was thinking it could be a nice Dreamworks movie. I guess it is a must see.

[Keane]

Yes, The Croods is indeed a fantastic movie.

Saw Jurassic Park 3D. I've always been a sucker for the movie, but, honestly, seeing it again, I found a lot of things to be somewhat stupid. Why does one of the kids randomly decide to get a flash light when the T-Rex is around them and then needs five fucking minutes to turn it back off? How the fuck would a raptor learn to open a door? Grant pulls a trick on the kids after they had the most horrifying moment in their life? What the fuck?

But meh, I love the movie either way.

[Raie de mes quatre]

The Possession. I loved it when it got windy and some guy lost his whole set of teeth.

[Adsolution]

I rewatched The Iron Giant today. I haven't seen it since... a long time ago. Aside from one or two scenes that I can remember, the vast majority I didn't remember; I can say one thing for sure though, it is pure greatness.

Even though I did say The Croods was one of the best animated films I've seen in the last decade, considering the fact that I think the twenty-first century has been a very mediocre time for animated films, it was simply one to rise above the others and make a stance, but unfortunately not a big enough stance to define a generation. Even though 3D animation is wonderful in its own regard... it's different than 2D both in the kind of content shown and in the overall atmosphere of the production. While some films like the first half of Wall-E (I say 'first half' because I think the first half was astoundingly good and the second half was almost infuriatingly bad), Up, and a lot of The Croods really resemble something you'd see in a 2D animated movie, the majority seem to have been geared far more toward a mainstream audience, introducing fourth-wall humour, goofiness and a much more light-hearted tone. Not that those things aren't present in any 2D animation, they were simply much more scarce in the 2D's, as they usually preferred to focus on telling an enveloping story instead of making the story come second and the little intermediate nuances within the plot take first place.

2D animation generally seems to focus much more on the emotional elements of an idea, as opposed to 3D animation, which I find usually tends to focus more on the humour, often seeming too embarrassed to share an intimate moment with the audience. Not that I'm trying to put down 3D animation as a whole, I simply prefer the former and its method of presentation. Since 3D animation is closer to what could be filmed with a camera than the drawings of 2D animation, we would normally expect it to be more grounded in reality. A lot of 3D animation could be adapted to live-action without it seeming to odd, it would simply come off as an alternative art film. However, if you were to take a piece of preexisting 2D animation and try to adapt it to something live-action, you would end up getting something so bizarre and 'arty' that words cannot describe. But that's what I often find 2D animation is all about. It's a deeper form of fantasy and escapism than 3D, and it would come off much more naturally abstract than 3D given the fact that 2D animation is so much different from something live-action.

3D animation just doesn't have the same impact on me that 2D animation does, and not because one is 3D and one is 2D, but because of the writing that almost always entails the genre. This is why films like Hercules (I rewatched it as well and found out I didn't like it nearly as much as I used to) and The Emperor's New Groove seem like they would fit right at home if they were animated in 3D - they're quite a bit sillier - and this is why I think that The Iron Giant was one of the last fantastic animated films released. The last animated film I can truly call a work of 'art,' as opposed to an 'action movie,' or a 'comedy;' It's as if that true mode of majesty's storytelling died alongside the twentieth century, except for a few residual blips here and there (such as the first half of Wall-E, like mentioned above). It just isn't the same anymore.


Since one of my primary passions is 2D animation, I strive to recreate ye style of olde. I have a few concepts I've been planning out for years, and no matter what it takes, I will find some way to see them through.


Another film I find worthy of mention is Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. Based off of one of my favourite book series', this is one gorgeous movie that I think is the closest piece of 3D animation to have ever resembled the storytelling of the 2D style. While I would arguably call this my favourite 3D animated film, I'm struggling to do so because of how it was executed. This movie had soul, it had a vision, it wanted to be great and it knew how to be different; the problem lies within the writing. It tried to cram in the content of three very packed 200-300 paged books into an hour and forty minute movie. It moves far too fast for you to keep track of or even care about what's really going on, and the voice acting, again, while visionary, is sub-par (regardless of the fact that many good voice actors are in the movie). Another problem is that there are a couple of things changed from the book to the film that I think for the most part take away a lot of the mystery the books held. I'd have to say that for art's sake, this is one of my favourite 3D animated films, but because of the areas it lacks in, I can't actually call it my favourite.

[saerleiya]

the problem lies within the writing. It tried to cram in the content of three very packed 200-300 paged books into an hour and forty minute movie. It moves far too fast for you to keep track of or even care about what's really going on, and the voice acting, again, while visionary, is sub-par (regardless of the fact that many good voice actors are in the movie). Another problem is that there are a couple of things changed from the book to the film that I think for the most part take away a lot of the mystery the books held. I'd have to say that for art's sake, this is one of my favourite 3D animated films, but because of the areas it lacks in, I can't actually call it my favourite.

*sigh* this is what most of adaptations lack of : either the book is too long or not really adaptable to the world of movies. Sometimes it's just too hard to make tons of movies for the quantity of books in a serie. But you can still adapt them in another form (talking about The Sword of Truth from Terry Goodkind which was adapted in a serie, or, most known, Game of Thrones).

of Wall-E (I say 'first half' because I think the first half was astoundingly good and the second half was almost infuriatingly bad)

I totally agree. Why just fuck up this movie with such a bad second part ?

This film has that magic that I feel has been largely absent from almost every animated movie in recent history, including Wreck-It Ralph.

The problem of Wreck-it Ralph is probably its own advantage : it used the world of Video Games (both old and new), which aren't as magical as many other topics used by Disney in its history (tell me if people find Video Games more magical than tales of princesses and knights). Or maybe it lacks of something which could have made it better.

(Well, this comment was in the first place my own point of view of Wrek-it Ralph, but it changed a bit. Let's do it ).

I saw Wreck-it Ralph some weeks ago. Indeed, first time this kind of universe is used in a movie. At least it showed some good ideas such as the movements of the inhabitants of the building in the game of Ralph, or the weird effects video game characters would do sometimes. The animation is well done (yeah but now it's almost a standard, now you can do your own game with freaky engines).
What surprised me is more the personality of the main characters (Vanellope and Ralph) : they really add something to this movie. Yeah of course, the "classical" way of a bad guy which is bored of doing the bad guy (please be quiet Zangief), yeah, yeah, yeah I know. But he doesn't seem to want to abandon all this "bad" side of him. And he is trying to make things right but it never goes the way he wants. The relationship between him and Vanellope really shows how afflicted they are by their own condition. Vanellope is trying to make good things happen too but it only results in "buggy" havoc. The villain is very creepy and well found for this kind of movie. It reminds me a bit of Toy Story with the fact that indeed many old games are not played anymore by people because they are really old now...

Hey, it was my Disney afternoon, cuz I saw Brave right after. Well, it's a very particular topic too, even if it deals with (again) a young princess and marriage and stuff (naaaaah). I liked this movie in the way it shows that sometimes if we can't choose a part of our destiny this is because we need to be protected and that we can't make some choices when we are still too young for them : there is no real villain in this movie (I don't see the "bad" guy as a real bad guy), and most problems Meleda and her family are facing are due to her own choices. Yeah her mother is too conservative.
What I disliked in this movie is that there are many characters who have a very shallow personality (in the contrary of Wreck-it Ralph). I didn't like at all the three brothers of the heroin, yeah the guys who know everything of the castle and that nobody will catch and who only listen to their sister.They are better when transformed into lil' bears than when they are those kind of red-haired scourges.

About adaptations of books, it's very hard to make it well by making it fit to both the universe of the story and the cinema. I'm thinking to the trilogy of Philip Pullman (Adaptation of The Amber Spyglass with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig) : it wasn't bad at all (for a movie) but I always thought it would be hard to make it a movie. And the end was the worst one I ever imagined for it. They just made it in order not to be forced to make the other ones (you need to read the book to understand). A certain part of the story is not used.

But sometimes people can't help themselves but ruining books by adapting them in cinema. I'm thinking to Eragon there. It's not well thought as The Sword Of Truth, but it is a good serie of books and a well done universe. But how could people ruin Christopher Paolini's first book with this shit ? Urgals are humans, Tronjheim is not under a mountain, Razacs die easily, people are not wearing clothes which fit the ambiance, and the worst ever : Saphira became adult in a fingersnap. The movie is too much oriented on the rivalry between Eragon and Durza and it's a waste of time. I hate people who made this movie. Go burn in hell, this story didn't deserve this. At least, do not make a movie from it.

[Master]

I thought Christopher Paolini was the writer of Eragon.

[saerleiya]

Edited my post. (Why did I write Alexander instead of Christopher ?).