MOVIE'S 2014

@LHoffman:

@Young:

“Unbroken” comes out Chrismas day, I’m wondering if this is a war film, or an inspirational drama.

Definitely feels like the latter. Which I think is why my wife actually thought it looked good. She did not say the same about Fury and that was decidedly a war film.

Judging by the previews, seems like the only war action we see is the B-24 being shot out of the sky. Beyond that it is about Zamperini’s life, accomplishments and ordeals as a POW. That can still make a good film certainly, but I would not expect to see much war fighting.

I think you’re right on all points, just wanted to know if it was something I could go see with my A&A buddies.

@Young:

I think you’re right on all points, just wanted to know if it was something I could go see with my A&A buddies.

I would think so. Should give you a positive feeling to counter the unredeemed darkness of Fury… if you saw that. That would be good for the Christmas season anyway.

@Young:

@LHoffman:

@Young:

“Unbroken” comes out Chrismas day, I’m wondering if this is a war film, or an inspirational drama.

Definitely feels like the latter. Which I think is why my wife actually thought it looked good. She did not say the same about Fury and that was decidedly a war film.

Judging by the previews, seems like the only war action we see is the B-24 being shot out of the sky. Beyond that it is about Zamperini’s life, accomplishments and ordeals as a POW. That can still make a good film certainly, but I would not expect to see much war fighting.

I think you’re right on all points, just wanted to know if it was something I could go see with my A&A buddies.
**––I have the book. As far as the WW2 content it’s a very good Drama of a man’s personal story of crashing, being captured and then enduring his capture.
----It’s a very inspiring story, set in WW2, but not a true war story per se’.
----The man this true story is based on passed away just this year after being able to see the preview of “his” film story.
----IMHO,…everyone should ‘experience’ this film, even though it’s not your typical war movie.

Tall Paul**

@LHoffman:

@ABWorsham:

The Hobbit should have been two films.

It isn’t even primarily the length that I have issues with, although I think that contributes a lot to its problems.

.
The length of the movie gave director Peter Jackson enough rope to metaphorically hang himself. The love story is terrible and the over dramatic dragon screens would not have played out had only two movies been made.

Although I loved seeing Legolas get his ass kicked.

Haha, well put. The biggest problem is that I just didn’t care about what was at stake in this drawn out trilogy. Part of that is definitely prequel-itis since most of us know how things will set up for the succeeding movies.

They changed they style far too much. I know that The Hobbit is a children’s book, but even Tolkien went back and edited to give continuity to LOTR.

What was a thoughtful and realistic drama in the LOTR films has given way to hollow characters and a fabricated world in The Hobbit, both visually and in terms of the screenplay. It is just so over-done and fake. I can’t stand it. There are few redeeming qualities, such as some of the actors, but unfortunately their talent was mostly wasted.

I never thought The Interview was worth seeing but I can’t stand that some jerks in Pyongyang (or Beijing, more likely) are intimidating theaters into not playing the movie.

Unbroken is another “empire of the sun” style movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092965/

@General:

I never thought The Interview was worth seeing but I can’t stand that some jerks in Pyongyang (or Beijing, more likely) are intimidating theaters into not playing the movie.

I can’t believe Sony pulled the film entirely… I mean, wow, what a cave. Seems pretty spineless to me. Wonder what Franco and Rogen think about that?

Why did NK do nothing when that garbage remake of Red Dawn came out? I wish they threatened me to stay away, that would have been good advice. Stop remaking movies that don’t need to be remade.

My guess: 1 hack deserves another.

If a patriotic group could hack Sony’s movie files, then they can post the movie for anyone to download free.

Just do it, announce the links, and we can see if the NK hacking group can follow up on their threats.

The third Hobbit installment fall squarely on the “doesn’t suck, can’t say it is good” tile. This last installment is by far the weakest of a series of films that already had issues. The whole thing is just bloated and over-produced.

My wife and I left the theater after watching The Battle of Five Armies torn, we enjoyed Middle Earth but disliked how the story of the Hobbit was told.

The love story between elf and drawf and the time devoted to the coward in the film took away from the story. Not enough Beorn. There should have been a funeral for Thorin and his kin.

@ABWorsham:

My wife and I left the theater after watching The Battle of Five Armies torn, we enjoyed Middle Earth but disliked how the story of the Hobbit was told.

The love story between elf and drawf and the time devoted to the coward in the film took away from the story. Not enough Beorn. There should have been a funeral for Thorin and his kin.

My brother said left left out a surprisingly large amount of tying up scenes. I figured some would be in the extended edition.

The Hobbit movie needed a whole lot more Hobbit.

Between those three movies there is probably a half way decent three to three and a half hour movie.

The love triangle/forbidden love nonsense would be among the first things to get cut, along with the coward/weasel and the whole Sauron side plot.

Gambler sucked, Hobbit sucked. Hobbit is nothing but another battle movie like part 3. I want the next one ( there is always a next one) to say THE LAST FINAL MOVIE BASED ON TOLKIEN BOOKS.

What disappointed me, as a Tolkien fan, was that I thought the LOTR needed a fourth movie to fully tell the entire story.
When I heard the Hobbit was cut into three movies I was excited that the entire story will get told. Oh, how I was wrong.

:x

My problem is they tried to tell to much story and also tell a bunch of story that was just created for the movies so they wouldn’t get yelled at for being sexist and some story that is just meant to tie it into the Rings films because the story of how Bilbo got the Ring of Power isn’t tie in enough. The whole thing was product cinema by focus group at its almost worst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4php_B1LQiM

@ABWorsham:

What disappointed me, as a Tolkien fan, was that I thought the LOTR needed a fourth movie to fully tell the entire story.
When I heard the Hobbit was cut into three movies I was excited that the entire story will get told. Oh, how I was wrong.

:x

LOTR was excellent at 3 films, IMHO. What I assumed was going to happen (and there was rumor of this initially) was that The Hobbit would be effectively told in two films and the third would take material from the LOTR Appendicies to tie together events from LOTR and the Hobbit. Including backstory on Aragorn/Arwen, capture of Gollum, watch on the Shire, White Council, etc… That would have been something.

Unfortunately it instead pulled a Star Wars. But even the prequel Star Wars films were much better than the Hobbit.

@Imperious:

Gambler sucked, Hobbit sucked. Hobbit is nothing but another battle movie like part 3. I want the next one ( there is always a next one) to say THE LAST FINAL MOVIE BASED ON TOLKIEN BOOKS.

I think you are probably wrong here IL. At least there should not be any more Tolkien films in the near future. As far as I know rights to all material that are not the Hobbit or LOTR are still owned by the Tolkien Estate and if Christopher Tolkien is to believed (and he is), they are not about to sell them. He hated what was done with LOTR and I have no doubts that he felt The Hobbit was even worse. So, we should mercifully have peace from Peter Jackson and company in regards to Middle Earth.

There was a time when I wished and hoped that Jackson would film the Silmarillion, or elements of it… but now I see what folly that was and how grateful I am that it cannot happen. Firstly, the book itself is utterly unfilmable, particularly as a movie. Secondly, his work on The Hobbit spoils any chance of Jackson doing such stories justice. I don’t know that Hollywood could treat the book with the respect it deserves. My cousin and I were having a discussion about Hollywood and “independent” films recently. She pointed out the LOTR was essentially an independent film with Hollywood financing. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed she was right. The Hobbit on the other hand has been mired in Hollywood wrangling from the get go and the formulaic screen version proves that. Did success and Hollywood ruin Peter Jackson?.. perhaps, but another debate entirely.

Jackson should do a spoof on his movies, just trash the whole genre of Fantasy films with cliche upon cliche in the vein of Monty Python, except Ghetto style