[ShaneP]

Hi y'all. So this is the place to come in and discuss all those movies that maybe dont have much to do with fx at all.

So if you've watched a great movie recently and nowhere seems like the appropriate place to discuss it, this is the place.

Discuss away and have fun.

Thx to Manuel for making this thread possible here.

[malducin]

Yeah, I was going to create one but work just kept getting in the way.

Just before SIGGRAPH I saw Midnight in Paris, amazing film I loved it especially all that talking about Golden Age thinking.

[ShaneP]

We didn't get that film here in Southern Utah.
3 megaplexes full of The Smurfs and the same other 5 movies but no smaller indie films.
This is why I have Netflix I guess.

I finally did watch Monsters from Gareth Edwards. Loved how he set up the world for the movie. Hopefully he will bring the same "people on the ground" asthetic to his Godzilla film. The last thing we need is more choppers!

[Kaero_Shan]

A few day ago I saw the documentary "Lost in La Mancha" about his never completed film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote from Terry Gilliam. I have seen really many making ofs, behind the scenes et cetera. But this one is not one of the best, this was better than most films I have seen in the last few years!!!
Very entertaining but also very sad at the same time. They had to cut the budget from 40 to 30 million dollars right from the beginning, they had a ridiculous amount of troubles during shooting (weather, health problems for the main actor, NATO-jets interfering with the shooting from day one) and then you see ass time passes by how Gilliam let this project go in order to not get hurt too much! Really sad, overall a great documentary!!!

By the way the german wikipedia article list a number of projects Gilliam should have or wanted to direct but in most the cases the studio did say no. They list "A Scanner Darkly", "Watchmen", "The Golden Compass", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Harry Potter".
The writers of Compass respectively Potter wanted Gilliam to be the director, but the studios wanted someone else. Very interesting and very entertaining what Gilliam rants about Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and Spielbergs abilities as a director:
http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/story.20050829.html

[malducin]

We didn't get that film here in Southern Utah.
3 megaplexes full of The Smurfs and the same other 5 movies but no smaller indie films.
This is why I have Netflix I guess.

I finally did watch Monsters from Gareth Edwards. Loved how he set up the world for the movie. Hopefully he will bring the same "people on the ground" asthetic to his Godzilla film. The last thing we need is more choppers!

Sometimes it doesn't get better in foreign big cities, I'm sometime I'm perplexed about studio release strategies, in particular Oscar nominated films, but that's another discussion.

I'm actually seriously considering getting either Netflix or Blockbuster for getting more indie and foreign films that don't get released here, plus I hear they do carry some anime (though maybe something like Crunchyroll is better). Last month my speed was crappy for some unknown reason but just before SIGGRAPH they seemed to have fixed it so now I;m confident I could use a streaming service.

Still haven't watched Monsters though it's on my queue. I did have more urgent things to watch like some older animated film, plus several TV shows, which I'm finally getting to see. I'm just waiting for December to really catch up.

A few day ago I saw the documentary "Lost in La Mancha" about his never completed film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote from Terry Gilliam. I have seen really many making ofs, behind the scenes et cetera. But this one is not one of the best, this was better than most films I have seen in the last few years!!!
....
By the way the german wikipedia article list a number of projects Gilliam should have or wanted to direct but in most the cases the studio did say no. ... Very interesting and very entertaining what Gilliam rants about Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and Spielbergs abilities as a director:

Yeah it seems he gets the worst of luck sometimes. Still haven't seen that documentary, dang should go to see if it's available down here.

I'll have to read that article carefully later on. I do remember him disliking Columbus' films.

[bigj1968]

Watched what had to be one of the worst films I had seen in along time at the weekend, Hindenberg!! A 2011 german tv production I would have thought, bad in so many ways other than the effects which looked amazing on the whole, done by pixomondo. The airships last few minutes were awesome in their believability! It was aiming for the same crowd as Pearl Harbour, Titantic, love set against disaster, but withs some truly awful acting! Even a tannoy announcement was badly acted!!!!worth a watch for the effects but other than that, awful.

Jon

[Kaero_Shan]

I liked Hindenburg not only effects wise. But I have a soft spot fot german tv movies who wants to be more than that. Like The Treasure of the NIbelungen:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286808/

[bigj1968]

Hi guys,

Just watched The Lovely Bones, a film I had chosen not to watch, however it was on terrestrial tv last night and I was tired so couldn't even be bothered to flick the channel, have to say I liked it!Very surprised in fact that I did. Grteat acting generally, Mr Wahlberg isn't the best with subtle acting, The Hapeening anyone, Stanley Tucci was CREEPY, loved the story, think I might actually buy it to. However I know that it was supposed to be set in an inbetween world for the murdered girl so reality was slightly warped, but I really didn't think much of the effects work. I am a harsh critic of Weta but most shots just looked bad!I liked the fall at the end and a couple of early shots, but other than that thought they were just average, would love to hear other peoples views on this film!

Jon

[TylerMirage]

I recently watched The Blind Side and Moneyball. Quite a surprise for me, given my penchant for action and adventure. Moneyball was pretty good and The Blind Side was superb. My only "beef" with The Blind Side was the fact that Bullock won an Oscar for that performance. It was nothing that special, in my opinion.

[ShaneP]

Pitt's performance in Moneyball has received early Oscar buzz. Is it that good TM?

Just watched Peter Weir's The Way Back a few nights ago. I think enjoy Weir's style or approach to material because I've enjoyed most all of his films. This one was no exception. Great performances and realism in the Siberian gulags(filmed in Bulgaria).

[TylerMirage]

Pitt's performance in Moneyball has received early Oscar buzz. Is it that good TM?

Just watched Peter Weir's The Way Back a few nights ago. I think enjoy Weir's style or approach to material because I've enjoyed most all of his films. This one was no exception. Great performances and realism in the Siberian gulags(filmed in Bulgaria).

Eh, in my opinion, I wouldn't call Pitt's performance "Oscar worthy". Was it awful? Not in the slightest. Good, but nothing to write home about. I just think that the Academy has a hard-on for Pitt. But then again, I'm also of the mindset that unless your acting is undeniably truly awful, Oscar-winners' acting isn't that distinguishable from not-Oscar-winners' acting. (aka, is there a quantifiable difference in the acting of Heath Ledger as The Joker vs RDJ as Sherlock Holmes? Or Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer vs Sandra Bullock as what's-her-name in The Blind Side?)

So, short answer, not in my opinion. But he'll probably get a nomination for some reason.

[ShaneP]

I'll have to check Moneyball out. Sports movies can be great.

[philipnova798]

Saw Dark of the Moon just last night on PPV. I saw it in theaters when it was out, and to be completely honest, I actually enjoyed it.

Sure, some characters are annoying, but I'm willing to overlook that.

However, I do have a beef with Paramount. For whatever reason, outside of Arachnophobia, Death Becomes Her, Rango and the Dreamworks Animation films they released, they've never really credited the ADR loop group. To be fair though, not every movie may have it (Disney hires those actions mainly for additional voice work and Pixar never does period, for example). But IMDb never even acknowledges them either. Anyone else notice this?

[Kmart]

Saw DRIVE in the theater yesterday and WOLFEN (30 years late) on streaming last night.

Except for wolf vision effect (which is what made me miss the movie in the first place, based on trailers), I liked pretty much all of WOLFEN, which had a slow pace that I found captivating. I looked it up, and unfortuntately there is no director commentary available; this is one of those rare ones where I'd actually LIKE to hear what a director had to say.

And in a kind of nice circular symmetry, DRIVE is very much like one of my favorite movies of 30 years ago, THIEF, but probably a whole helluva lot better (and I imagine more rewatchable - THIEF on DVD is just not the same thing at all.) DRIVE has super use of sound, a music track that is somewhere just between TANGERINE DREAM and the vocals you'd hear occasionally on TWIN PEAKS, and only a few well-defined characters (all bad guys.) And it all works.

On a vaguely fx-related note, bought BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and have watched it four times already. Two commentaries on there, and I've heard the Sayles/Corman one, which is fun. GREAT making of on the FX with Skotaks and Finance and others, which is probably worth the price just by itself (very rare for me to buy a DVD new, maybe happens twice a year (INCEPTION is the only one I can recall recently.)

[ShaneP]

Heard good things about Drive.


philipnova, I can't believe there's no ADR on a film like Tranny 3. I think it's just a typical studio oversight.

[philipnova798]

philipnova, I can't believe there's no ADR on a film like Tranny 3. I think it's just a typical studio oversight.

That's what I'm thinking; a studio oversight that constantly keeps coming up. Look at GI Joe and Star Trek of 2009. There's no group listing either.

[ShaneP]

I just imagine with those big films and all the explosions and everything else that ADR could be quite extensive.

[philipnova798]

I just imagine with those big films and all the explosions and everything else that ADR could be quite extensive.

Yeah, why paramount never credits them is way beyond my reason.

Though I'm guessing that the voice actors (for the robots) did their own ADR. While the group that most likely did the human/minor Cybertronian ADR were left uncredited.

[ShaneP]

I read an article somewhere once about how much of Backdraft had ADR throughout. It was huge. It's actually an amazing process when you look into it a little. Talk about seamless.

[philipnova798]

I read an article somewhere once about how much of Backdraft had ADR throughout. It was huge. It's actually an amazing process when you look into it a little. Talk about seamless.

Were the lead actors in the group?