Last movie watched...

[Jim_Campbell]

the deployment of my shiny new 4K HD ultra-super-duper versions of the LotR trilogy.

So, I actually bought a new Blu-ray player for this Lord of the Rings 4K HD box set, and we watched ‘Fellowship‘ (Extended) tonight.

A couple of things first, though:

1) We do not have a massive telly. I treated us to a decent-ish 43” LG in the summer with some of the money I wasn’t spending in the pub. I’m really not an A/V nerd.

2) Following on from 1), I discovered I’m not really a fan of 4K TV. Turns out, I like film grain, I like motion blur. With 4K, far too much stuff looks sterile or just fake — sets look like sets, costumes look like costumes. I’m sticking with it because I have to, but I’m not really liking it that much.

With that out of the way…

OH MY FUCKING GOD. I imagine this 4K HD Super-duper treatment won’t favour many films the way it favours LotR, with its *insane* levels of attention to detail, but in this case it plays like a new movie. ‘Nothing’ shots that you glossed right over suddenly leap out at you. Establishing shots you never gave a second thought look like paintings by the Old Masters. Details emerge from the shadows in almost every scene and everything feels fresh again.

Also, although I haven’t gone back to do a side-by-side comparison, I’ve seen these movies A LOT — I mean, three times in the cinema, theatrical release DVD, extended edition DVD, now this. And it seems to me like they’ve fixed some FX shots — there are several composite shots that I’ve thought were pretty shonky since Day One, that seem to have been fixed. Don‘t get me wrong — it’s all the same FX, but there were several composited group shots that seem to have been tweaked. I’m not techy on this stuff, but the film‘s been extensively regraded for colour, I believe, so I wonder if they’ve done a localised colour tweak to better bring the composite elements into the environment. Whatever, there are several FX shots that I remember looking like shit that now seem look a lot better.

Also, also: audio. There are several lines in the extended cut of Fellowship that I’ve always thought were indistinct, which are now not. Specific example: Gandalf’s line in Moria about Bilbo’s mithril shirt being worth “more than the value of the Shire” has *definitely* been fixed.

So… honestly? Probably worth the £200 I dropped on a new Blu-ray player. For my wife. Obviously.

[pictsy]

Shaun The Sheep Movie

Watched this on Christmas Day.  Shaun the Sheep is great fun and this movie captures a lot of that.  It likes its gags and pulls them off really well.  It is also brave enough to have no dialogue.  The film is really sweet as well.  It was a great choice for Christmas.

A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmaggedon

In some ways more like the TV show, in other ways more like a traditional movie.  I don't think this is as good as the first film and I think that's because it lacks the gags and has aliens.  It was a lot more sweet and very cute.  I still had fun and thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

Game Change  I don't know whether this counts as I haven't finished watching it.  This one is about Sarah Palin and I had heard it allowed the viewer sympathy for her, but I just didn't feel it.  The film was hard for me to watch because it was about awful people and I couldn't engage with it.  I was hoping that it would at least be funny, considering the subject matter, but it's not.

It is exceptionally well acted by Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson is a delight like he always is.  It is a well made film and what I saw was very good.  I'm just not keen on watching the lives of... unpleasant people... at the moment.

Nekrotronic  This is an Australian action film about ghosts with sci-fi elements.  It is very mediocre.  I struggle to find any reason to recommend watching it, probably because there isn't one.  It feels like a film made with a checklist and it reeks of a desperation to be cool and funny that just serves to highlight the lack of quality.  That being said, to a degree it is competently made.

[Hawkmumbler]

I rewatched THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as part of a family zoom...thing that I'm just glad I was able to mute.

Don't rewatch THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Don't make the same mistake I did, it's worse than we remembered.

[Colin YNWA]

I rewatched THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as part of a family zoom...thing that I'm just glad I was able to mute.

Don't rewatch THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Don't make the same mistake I did, it's worse than we remembered.

Oh now you've made me want to rewatch Rise of Skywalker. Bought the DVD when it first came out and we still haven't watched it again!?!

Now I'm curious as to how bad it can be?

[pictsy]

I rewatched THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as part of a family zoom...thing that I'm just glad I was able to mute.

Don't rewatch THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Don't make the same mistake I did, it's worse than we remembered.

Haven't watched it, so can't rewatch it.  Should I not watch it?

[Professor Bear]

Netflix original The Midnight Sky - is it bad if you guess a twist five minutes into a movie, even though you're going in cold and don't know there's a twist?  If so, maybe give this a go anyway, as it's an interesting failure if nothing else, with its built-bummer ending (a terminally-ill main character experiencing a global apocalypse) that is pretty much inescapable, even when some of the plot gets a bit too stupid to keep the movie functioning (said character gets dunked in Arctic waters for several minutes, then walks around a frozen wasteland for several hours during a blizzard) and you get a creeping suspicion that the writing might actually be bad enough to try for a happy ending.  AND NO-ONE WANTS THAT.
What really tanks it is the two concurrent plot strands, as just as the Earth-bound plot breaks in half, we have to go spend time with some dull spacemen until their plot breaks in half, too (they expend all their resources - including over half their crew - getting to Earth from Saturn, then decide to turn around and go back to Saturn - you can sort of spot the basic math problem with this scenario).

Despite all that (and some other concerns), I enjoyed it, and would recommend sci-fi lovers give it a go.  If nothing else, it's got George Clooney with a lockdown beard.

[pictsy]

...is it bad if you guess a twist five minutes into a movie, even though you're going in cold and don't know there's a twist?

IMO No.  I watched a film and got the the twist on right at the start on the titles.  I think it was intentional, but as a thing for a second viewing.  It was done well, though and the film was enjoyable.  I think that's the issue, because a twist executed badly or even telegraphed badly can count against the film, but figuring out a twist in-and-of itself shouldn't.

You not-so-glowing recommendation has me curious.  I have been known to enjoy some bad sci-fi films.  I might give it a look

[Jim_Campbell]

Haven't watched it, so can't rewatch it.  Should I not watch it?

Honestly, it's fucking terrible. It makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight. It looks great, and the cast are fine, but unless you're really quite drunk, or treating it as a series of largely unconnected three-minute mini-plays, you'll spend 142 minutes going "Wait… WHAT?"

[von Boom]

I rewatched THE RISE OF SKYWALKER as part of a family zoom...thing that I'm just glad I was able to mute.

Don't rewatch THE RISE OF SKYWALKER. Don't make the same mistake I did, it's worse than we remembered.

Since I have no intention of ever subscribing to Disney+ there's a more than even chance I'll never see RoS.

I wonder if Alan Dean's Foster might have improved it?
https://comicbook.com/movies/news/star-wars-novelist-alan-dean-foster-episode-ix-treatment-retcon-the-last-jedi-terrible-film/?fbclid=IwAR3nZRQ6BIWah8KEh1xjAKZRnRBSyaq_fatwYMUO2juSL0VyDkKmqAubUk0

[Professor Bear]

It makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight.

JJA has very definite opinions about the attention span of his audience.  I still remember how the opening shot of his Star Trek reboot is a spaceship flying through space making spaceship noises, and then a minute later another spaceship is shooting very loud space lasers, while many loud space explosions happen.  Then someone falls out of a door or something into space, which is deathly silent because there is no noise in space.

[JOE SOAP]

I wonder if Alan Dean's Foster might have improved it?

I read his treatment, it's worse.

[Funt Solo]

re. The Rise of Skywalker - I had to look up which one that was, because even though the original trilogy is laser-grafted onto my brain in script-regurgitating accuracy, I can't really track all the new parts of the monstrous cyborgian cash cow it's become. And I'm older, and care less.

It was a fairly pants movie, but I noticed two things:

1. 7-year old mini-Solo got hit by the wow factor when a ka-zillion Rebel ships showed up to save the day. I thought it over-egged the cake. This reminded me that the pod race in The Phantom Menace was the most exciting thing in the universe for my young nephew at the time, while it made me yawn, think of commercial tie-ins and want the moppet to die. (Not my nephew - Anakin.) Summary: these movies are not made for our generation, so I don't really know if they're good or not.

2. The ads before the movie were too frightening for 7-year old mini-Solo, because all of them featured almost constant gun-play and bloody, merciless violence. It was a PG-13, so maybe I should have considered that, but there's a difference between an evil space wizard and magic swords, and Ryan Reynolds getting beaten to a bloody pulp in a hyper-violent main street fantasy.

[Tjm86]

The more I think about the new trilogy films the less impressed I find myself.  There is just so much that really does not make sense.  The middle film is the most peculiar one, right from the word go.  Don't get me wrong, the space bombers are impressively designed but they just don't make sense.

First off, they move incredibly slowly.  Why?  It just makes them so much easier to hit (which strangely is what happens!)  Then .... they 'drop' bombs ... in space ...  Seriously?  Who came up with that idea?  Could we explain the gaping flaw here?  I mean, when it comes to space 'suspension of disbelief' takes on a whole new meaning here.  Not to mention the old ... they fall really slowly ... easy to hit ... problem.

Then the whole of the rebellion fits in a single spaceship.  Sorry .... try that again .... the 'whole' of the rebellion?  They're chased by a massive armada but now they're down to this single ship ... okay?

Don't get me wrong, Star Wars is supposed to be about as realistic as a promise by Alexander Johnson.  I get that.  But at the same time I really have to wonder if the people in the script pitching meeting were even listening to themselves speak, never mind each other.  More to the point, if that is the sort of lame thinking that qualifies for international cinema script-writing these days then I've got a remedial English class that could do with some work ... (actually reading that last bit back I realise how insulting that is to those English students).

[Funt Solo]

.... they 'drop' bombs ... in space ...

This was where my own willing suspension of disbelief struggled. I've had people argue back to me all sorts of reasons why that makes sense (somehow), but none of it rang true. It was just stupid. The first movie (I mean from 1977) had more of a sense of us being in a three dimensional space, with the sphere of the Death Star, and the fighters twisting and turning. The trench is used to provide a sense of up and down.

It's interesting, because I'm entirely able to forgive all sorts of other bits of space logic - like magic gravity on board ships, and nearly all alien life being bipedal and carbon-based, and everyone speaking English, and sound traveling through a vacuum, and the engines always being at the back, and FTL travel not breaking causality, and humans being in charge of controlling the space ships when a computer would be more efficient for nearly every task you can imagine etc.

But, yeah, space bombers are a stupid idea.

[wedgeski]

It makes no sense, not only disregarding established continuity but also not even being able to keep its own internal narrative rules straight.

JJA has very definite opinions about the attention span of his audience.  I still remember how the opening shot of his Star Trek reboot is a spaceship flying through space making spaceship noises, and then a minute later another spaceship is shooting very loud space lasers, while many loud space explosions happen.  Then someone falls out of a door or something into space, which is deathly silent because there is no noise in space.

This tired old thing? Cinema plays with reality at every turn, yet somehow it's wrong when sci-fi does it.