@Deborah:

:D

Book of Eli – It was interesting, I guess, but more than anything I liked how it was shot. I don’t know if it’s a little strange that I was paying more attention to the colours than anything else. Especially in those scenes where it’s him and Solara just walking in the middle of nowhere with this expanse of illuminated grey-green sky all around them. Most of it’s special effects, probably, but it was still beautiful to watch. Special effects are okay when it’s not just whatever pretty false pictures the director wanted to shove at you.

I just saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Anybody want to discuss?

Went to see _The Phantom Menace_ in 3D. It didn't work 100% of the time, but it was probably the first instance of 3D I actually enjoyed. Instead of sitting back and waiting for things to leap out from the screen, the movie had a tangible depth to it. Really felt like I was looking into it, rather than just looking at it.

^Beautiful.

I watched Akeelah and the Bee last night. Not only was it a nice feel-good movie, it also contained Laurence Fishburne and was all about a spelling bee (and I did enjoy those spelling bees of my youth).

I watched Casablanca.

...

Wow.

I fell asleep within the first half hour. Me and my short attention span.

Early reviews for the Hunger Games are generally positive.

Ohyeaaaaah.

I’m going to see the Hunger Games on Friday. I can’t wait!

Saw _Blackhawk Down_ again.

bq. Or maybe I’m thinking of another war movie.

It's the one about the Operation in 1993 in Mogadishu.

bq. But I do remember liking it.

I love it, but it is pretty heartbreaking, the actual events even more so.

Sen: Ever heard the theory where that movie is all in Cameron’s imagination? He imagines Ferris as his cool friend who does everything he’s afraid to.

I have, actually. I still hate him.

"_Prometheus_ International Trailer":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9jRaa4Wkbk

I'm getting so pumped for this movie. No one does scifi like Scott.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked Peeta. With his silly name, I found myself not liking him so much in the book, but in the movie, he was really cool. And the actor who played him did a very good job.

She’s selfish and stupid and she has this thing where she can’t understand that people think differently to her. In the book it was more pronounced, especially with the way she acted towards Peeta (acting in love with him just to get sponsors and thinking he was acting in love with her when really he was basically a hundred percent genuine all the time). Anyway, I didn’t dislike her as much as I dislike Bella, but she definitely has her moments where I wish she would just go away and we could hear the story from someone who I can actually care about. Also she doesn’t deserve Peeta.

(I found a solution to the name dilemma. Take of an ‘s’ from Katniss- Katnis doesn’t remind me so much of piss.)

Also, the world makes no sense.

I kind of just got a ‘generic dystopia with reality TV’ impression.

(I found a solution to the name dilemma. Take of an ‘s’ from Katniss- Katnis doesn’t remind me so much of piss.)

I hate the name as much as I hate “Isabella Marie Swan” because you’re supposed to be all like, oooh it’s so pretty and feminine. I know it’s the name of a root or plant or something, but it looks far too much like kiss. Wanting to have a name like that for the female lead is what annoys me.

And Peeta’s starting to sound a lot more like Peter, so it’s doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Most of the names aren’t conventional (Thresh and Cato come to mind, both boy’s names), so I don’t mind that Katniss and Peeta are sort of odd names because it fits with the premise.

Her narration is obnoxious, both from her coldness and from the constant “let me tell you about this”.

This. She doesn’t really have a shred of sympathetic emotion in her except when it’s convenient for the author (like protectiveness of her sister Prim and the girl in the games, can’t remember her name).

Also, the world makes no sense.

I never understood why all the districts had to be so small and so far apart.

I just watched it yesterday, and I have to say, I actually like Katniss a lot more in the movies than in the books. She seems more empathetic, somehow. I didn’t really like the books that much, so in my opinion the movies were much better. Jennifer Lawrence is really good.

Or… *cough* A podcast? >.>

I watched it Saturday, and came away with mixed feelings. The shaky cam was way over-used, and the acting was kinda hit and miss. Like with Rue’s death, Jennifer Lawrence did a good job but the little girl just didn’t seem like she was dying from a spear to the gut. This was a much more emotionally moving performance in my opinion (I still get chills watching it). Also, Katniss just didn’t look like she had spent days in the wilderness/arena at the end of the Games; she was too clean. She should have looked like Frodo and Sam at the end of The Return of the King.

First person, present tense.

bq. First person, present tense.

Sans the first person narrative, why am I getting the sense this is sort of the polar opposite of Twilight? Granted, I'm only piecing together what I've read about it, but still.

Edit: I should clarify; I'm speaking strictly in terms of characters, not setting or timeframe.

Sci-fi movies: Why are intelligent life-forms always after the Americans?

Yeah, there’s that, but then there’s also those instances where a spaceship crash lands on Earth, and it just happens to land in LA or something. You guys want all the fun to happen over there. :P

Maybe he meant they’d want to first eliminate the strongest before moving onto the rest of the planet, or something. Although, I hardly think his assumption is true. :D

WE ARE BETTER THAN YOU, AMERICA

@ Sen: You talking about South Africa in particular, or Africa in general? :P Either way, what standard of BETTER are we using?

Annually, the US sells movie tickets in the billions, and I don't think the next highest country pulls in even a third of that. In other words, you build for your market.

Which I’ve always thought is kind of silly. I know what the US looks like. Why would I want to see more of it? Show me aliens invading someplace cool that I’m unfamiliar with!

Maybe it’s just a cheap way to up the stakes—it’s not just some unfamiliar town, it’s NEW YORK CITY or LOS ANGELES or whatever. My real question is why the aliens never invade Detroit. Maybe they know when they’re beat…

What possible resource could they hope to acquire from invading Detroit? Automobiles Unions? The soul-crushing despair that accompanies industrial collapse and urban decay? Calvin “Megatron” Johnson for their fantasy football teams?

Fixed

@sansa – that is a fair point, I have to admit.

bq. What possible resource could they hope to acquire from invading Detroit? Automobiles? The soul-crushing despair that accompanies industrial collapse and urban decay?

Maybe one of their film companies has hired a mercenry company to take Detroit so they can have a nice setting for a series of post-apocalyptic holo-flicks.

bq. Who, the aliens?

Yeah.

So, the human film company is making a movie about the alien film company

For some reason I was thinking more about aliens actually coming here and wrecking shit just so that they could make a good movie and go back home, leaving us behind in the utter destruction they caused while their population flocks to the cinema to watch the latest blockbuster.

Been thinking about something (which hurt, by the way). This year's salvo of summer flicks is notable on many different levels, so I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in picking one of the movies and reviewing it. We could set up a list of the movies set to release, and someone could claim it and write up a review for it when they see it. And it wouldn't even have to be a review; think of it more as a "Moviegoer's Impression of ____". We could even possibly split the impressions in two parts, one with spoilers and one without.

I'm currently wanting to catch the midnight opening for _Prometheus_. Here's a tentative list (feel free to add if you're interested in reviewing):

* The Avengers, 4 May:
* Dark Shadows, 11 May:
* The Dictator, 11 May:
* Battleship, 18 May:
* What To Expect When You're Expecting, 18 May:
* Men in Black III, 25 May:
* Snow White and the Huntsman, 1 June:
* Madagascar 3, 8 June:
* *Prometheus, 8 June: Rocky*
* Rock of Ages, 15 June:
* Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 22 June:
* Brave, 22 June:
* GI Joe: Retaliation, 29 June:
* The Amazing Spider-Man, 3 July:
* Ice Age: Continental Drift, 13 July:
* The Dark Knight Rises, 20 July:
* The Bourne Legacy, 3 August:
* Total Recall, 3 August:
* Paranorman, 17 August:
* The Expendables 2, 17 August:

I have kind of a morbid curiosity to see Snow White and the Huntsman, to be honest.

I'm curious about several of those, and may well see them. If anyone's interested in seeing something (which doesn't have to be for the midnight premier) and wants to write up impressions, just say so.

◦The Avengers, 4 May: SWEET MOTHER OF GOD HELL YES!
◦Dark Shadows, 11 May: Wha?
◦The Dictator, 11 May: Wha?
◦Battleship, 18 May: HELL NO.
◦What To Expect When You’re Expecting, 18 May: ...no.
◦Men in Black III, 25 May: Nah.
◦Snow White and the Huntsman, 1 June: F*** no.
◦Madagascar 3, 8 June: Bleh.
◦Prometheus, 8 June: Rocky
◦Rock of Ages, 15 June: Wha?
◦Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 22 June: No. No, no, NO.
◦Brave, 22 June: Sigh. Not sure.
◦GI Joe: Retaliation, 29 June: No.
◦The Amazing Spider-Man, 3 July: Maybe?
◦Ice Age: Continental Drift, 13 July: NO.
◦The Dark Knight Rises, 20 July: FUCK YES. OPENING WEEKEND.
◦The Bourne Legacy, 3 August: No.
◦Total Recall, 3 August: No.
◦Paranorman, 17 August: No.
◦The Expendables 2, 17 August: Probably. My boyfriend thinks it looks awesome.

HEY. You left The Three Stooges off of the list! Also, The Hobbit should be on there, even if it is in December. IT’S THE MOTHERF***ING HOBBIT!

◦Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, 22 June: No. No, no, NO.

We seem to have some seriously different taste in, well, everything, but I am so relieved to find somebody else who thinks this sounds terrible. The number of people I know who think this sounds like the most Bad Ass Movie of Bad-assery makes me fear for the future of civilization. Come on, Universe, bring on the meteor, already – I’ve got my six pack of beer and a lawn chair, so I’m ready for it.

I’m looking forward to The Hobbit, of course.

And the Les Mis movie, despite all my misgivings.

No, Wulf, you're not alone. Long before I saw the trailer, I thought that was one of the most idiotic ideas for a _story_, let alone a book/film.

Edit: Willow, some of the entries on the list are there because they're wide releases.

Yeah, I figured. I had to look up some of them myself.

I dunno, I wanna see it. Then again I liked Rambo IV and Bruce and Lloyd's Get Smart.

Frankly, the trailer they released was exactly what I expected it to be: action shots, mood shots. No dialogue, no expressions, no details, no narrative hints, nothing. I can understand a curiosity or mild amusement toward it, but it just strikes me as a "lowest common denominator" product.

I read somewhere that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to be starring in a biopic of Abraham Lincoln as a historical figure.

epic!

In this, the year of our Lord 2012, I dismiss pretty much everything described this way out of hand.

For whatever reason, it’s not acceptable to the public at large for movies to be great anymore. They have to be ZOMG SO AWESOME

I’m not saying that I think it’s bound to suck based on concept, but it’s not going to be good or even entertaining based on concept either. Premise is the most overrated component of fiction, as far as I’m concerned.

action-heavy shaky cam

Shaky cam can get fucked. If, by some wildly improbably stroke of luck, I’m ever in a position to sell the movie rights to something I’ve written, I won’t budge unless there’s a “no shaky cam” provision included in the agreement. Ideally it’ll have a sub-clause that says “shoot this shit like it’s Sword of Doom” as well, but I’ll settle for just no shaky cam.

edit Also neat, but reportedly Marvel’s going to have the Russo brothers of Arrested Development and Community direct the next Captain America movie. That could actually be pretty cool, as they directed Advanced D&D and Fistful of Paintballs so they can do action-y stuff, and Cooperative Calligraphy, so they can do stuff with no action at all. Neat. Then they and Justin Lin will be able to create a three-man back-patting triangle for guys who have directed Community episodes and major motion pictures.

I WAS NOT BEING DEAD SERIOUS

YES YOU WERE

DON’T LIE TO ME SEN

GODDAMN YOUR CURRENT AVATAR IS STRANGELY REWARDING TO BERATE

Don’t worry, Bunk. I got your back here.

YELLING AT A PIKACHU IS FUNNY

AND PUPPET HAS GONE MCNUTTY