Philotic Web

Hysteria was fun and charming and not nearly as scandalous as I expected it to be; despite being an 'R' rated film, I'm pretty sure I've seen/heard considerably worse or more sexual things in plenty a summer blockbuster 'PG-13.'

Rubber

The movie about the tire that rolls around killing people with its mind and falls in love with a woman it was peeping(tom) on.
Do...I...really need to flesh together any more words concerning this movie? Whatever you're thinking. However you're judging it.
You are correct.

Daydream Nation

I originally saw this flick at the Toronto Film Festival and recently re-watched it on Netflix. I loved the film when I first saw, but didn't know if that was because it was the first film of the festival and I was amped up. But it held up pretty well. The film is a well contrived mess that works and mimics the small town's current state. I loved Kat Dennings and Reece Thompson's performances. It is also visually appealing and has a great soundtrack. All in all, I will probably watch it again down the road. It is definitely one of my favorites that could be considered a "chick-flick".

Argo - 10 of 10

Hell yes. One of the best movies of the year. Insanely entertaining, increcdibly tense, fantastic storytelling, superb acting, great script and stupendous technical qualities, just a tremendously great movie. like Brave, this is better than any 2011 movie (best movies of 2011, were imo, Hugo, Jane Eyre, Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Hot Coffee). Go see it. It's amazing. Renee had to leave because it got too tense for her to stand it.

Briget Jones Diary 8 of 10

Good acting/writing etc, quite entertaining but nothing special romcom. otoh, these are the sorts of movies I find too tense to stand, as it gets into the embarassment humor situations that make me so uncomfortable I have an extremely hard time getting through a lot of scenes.

Frankenweenie - 6.5ish of 10

Tries really hard but never succeeded for me, it's not bad, but it's not good either. It starts off so slowly and just lacks any forward momentum in the storytelling until the dog is killed/revived at some point past halfway through the film. Then other kids get the idea to do the same so that Burton can do monster movie tributes to Dracula, Gremlins, Godzilla, the mummy and some rat monster movie. These tributes are also cute if you get the references, but the movie just felt like it tried way too hard most of the time.Cute but largely a failure, especially for kids. If you're in the target audience of middle-aged movie geeks with particular affinity for the horror genre, then you'll probably love it. But that's a pretty small audience that will really enjoy the film.

Trouble with the Curve 8 of 10

Overall it works, it's nothing special, but the film hits a solid double. Nothing wrong or negative I could say about the film, but really not anything to praise or love about it either. Solid performances and script with a heartwarming ending. Nice feel-good movie, but not much more than that.

Daydream Nation

Assuming I don't fall back into the slumber of a would-be sick person, this is what's for dinner. Or what's going to be playing when I eat dinner.

I would never even consider that a chick-flick. Coming of age from a female perspective? Yes. Chick-flick? Not in my opinion.

Maybe not exactly, but a teen coming of age movie with a romantic angle? I think that is more chick-flickish than not.

Did you enjoy it?

If I were to put it under the label Chick Flick, it would be in the same category as Garden State, which I also see as more of a 20s-coming of age sort of story than romantic. It has romance in it but that's hardly the entirety of it, which is what I would consider the point of most tried and true chick flicks.

But yes, I liked it quite a bit. A lot of the characters seemed authentic to me, including the crazy ones. Or maybe especially the crazy ones.

Singin in the Rain is still all sorts of awesome and the new bluray is staggering and well done, I've seen it in the theatre half a dozen times and it's always looked good, but never this good.

Donny and I watched Zombieland for Halloween. So, so hilarious and awesome. And touching, a bit. But mostly funny as hell.

Seen a few recently. Argo, The Master, Trouble With the Curve, Wreck It Ralph, probably others that I don't remember right now.
I loved all of them except for Trouble with the Curve which was only ok

Magic Mike is quite possibly the worst movie I've seen since Sex and the City 2.

The Amazing Spider-man is not only the superior between itself and the Sam Raimi trilogy but is also the superior of that other big superhero movie that came out recently; might have heard of Avengers? No contest. The more compelling story goes to Spidey all the way.

A little over an hour to go in the last movie about The Batman (hehe) and it's making me very anxious. I might have to pause it and come back to it.

But SO good. Much better than Avengers...which has turned into my new point of comparison for movies that should be good (but don't always live up to it).

I still need to see the new Spiderman, I keep forgetting it exists.

I loved The Dark Knight Rises, it was such a fun movie to see in IMAX.

For me, the Avengers was amazing. Spiderman was very good, much better than the other films. And The Dark Knight Rises was an utter disappointment.

I was completely captivated by Dark Knight Rises. I liked it better than Batman Begins and found it equal to the Dark Knight. At the end I both "tee-hee"d and "awww"d. I think hearing so many mixed reviews beforehand worked in its favor.

Avengers felt like a movie fight-budget orgy. Then again, I was let down by some of the solo movies leading up to it (Captain America? Strong start but turned into a snooze fest real fast; Iron Man 2? bloated budget extravaganza, which is a shame as the first was great; Thor was so surprisingly good; Hulk...well, Mark Ruffalo/Edward Norton issues aside, I enjoyed that stand-alone [probably more because Edward Norton was in it than because it was a super fantastic movie] and thought MR was a great Hulk but couldn't get past the fact they didn't just start with him...who am I forgetting?). There were clever moments, it wasn't a terrible movie, but it just wasn't as great (to me) as I was led to believe it was going to be and that disappointment is holding ever so strongly.

I really liked The Amazing Spider-Man, but my fangirl crush of Tobey Maguire would make feel very disloyal if I said I liked it better than the originals (however true that may or may not be).

I loved Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers. The latter wasn't quite up to the hype, but it lived up to my personal expectations. It's Avengers 2 that I'm worried about.

Speaking of Edward Norton, has anyone seen Moonrise Kingdom? I really liked it. It was quirky and sweet and had great acting.

I did whenever I did my IL Day in the Life! It's not a movie I'll watch often but I did enjoy it quite thoroughly. Quirky and sweet, indeed.

We've already watched three of my favorite Christmas movies, and half watched Elf last weekend (it was on tv but we were too tired to keep it on)

Home Alone - always awesome
Love Actually - Best modern Christmas movie by a comfortable mile
White Christmas - like this more every year, the script is so damn clever. Saw it at Oscars outdoors last night and they had some hollywood snow machines they turned on for the finale.

I liked Avengers more than Dark Knight and more or less refuse to see Spiderman because it looks like Spiderman3emo put into spiderman1 and the idea of a reboot this soon is just irritating.

hmm, maybe a rundown of 2012 films is needed, I don't think my top two will, change, but who knows.

1. Brave - 10 - Just amazing, wonderful, incredible emotional storytelling and brilliant comedy, the most ghibli of pixar movies. the critical reception of this film has really irritated me to no end.

2. Lincoln - 10 - as a big fan of Team of Rivals, I loved every minute of this. Incredible script, incredible performances, top notch and brilliant from start to finish.

Argo - 10 - Wonderfully tense, old fashioned style thriller bracketed by amusing Hollywood asides. Loved it.

Wreck-it-Ralph - 10 - Ingenious and surprisingly resonant video game Toy story, loved every little bit of this, the boss fight was amazing.

Dark Knight Rises - 10 (or 9?) - Loved this at the time, have cooled towards it slightly since, can't wait to rewatch it. Why did Batman spend hours painting a batsignal on a bridge though?

Avengers - 9 - Oh Whedon, you brilliant, irrasscible scoundrel, how wonderful you made such a geek-gasm of a superhero flick. I wish there was more to the villain/threat though.

Looper - 9 - Goddamn this movie was fun, brilliant. Great writing and acting and a truly spooky real villain that is far more interesting than the not terribly 'gangsters' villains.

Moonrise Kingdom - 9 - Cute, quirky and wonderful, I wish it weren't so NPR Schweddy Balls monotone though.

Beasts of the Southern Wild - 9 - Damn that girl is fierce, and this film is a stunning fever-dream, a wondrous child's perspective on some surprisingly tough issues.

Skyfall - 9 (8 maybe?) - I sort of feel about this as I do about the Dark Knight, some of it is just phenomenal but it seems to seriously lack in real emotional heft, it's doing big important supposedly impactful things but it feels lean chill and distant most of the time.

Cloud Atlas - 9 - The true true is dat dis movie is gonna be polarizing. It's wildly ambitiously, absurdly weird and really really intricate and fascinating, and a rip-roaring entertaining mess. At times it feels too on-the-nose with the philosophizing, but in that good Matrix on-the-nose not the bad Matrix 2/3 on-the-nose.

Secret world of Arietty - 9 - Miyazaki is always wonderful and always a treat, it's amazing how he can imbue excellence into this material that would ordinarily be only average, still it is somewhat of a forgettable effort for him,

Hunger Games - 8 - Since I've now read the books, maybe I'll like this better on a rewatch?

21 Jump Street - 8 - Goddamn this is absolutely a complete win, tremendously funny, reminds me of Easy A

John Carter - 8 - The much hated flop is actually a very impressively wrought affair with a reasonably strong story and great effects, I think it's biggest problem is that it is retro-sci-fi and doesn't have much to stand on in an era of Looper and Cloud Atlas, Avengers and Men in Black. In a sense it's too weird for today's weird because it's so old.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi - 8 - nomnomnom

Flight - 8 - phenomenal performance from Denzel, fascinating take on Faith, great look at alcoholism, but not a film I'll probably ever rewatch.

When in Rome - 8 - a not much loved Woody Allen flick is pretty good, imo, not as great as Midnight in Paris, but better than many of his recent films.

Sessions - 8 - Great performances, but an almost substanceless movie from a topic that seems to reek of substance and importance, it's more effervescent than you would expect, never really carrying any weight or so-what to the narrative, you're glad for the character but that's about it.

Trouble with the Curve - 7? - A very forgettable film about baseball with a really lame 'character revelation' at the end, good but not at all great, a decent staple of TNT in the future, I imagine.

Men in Black 3 - 7 - a very good sequel with a very excellent ending and a surprising emotional core to the film I didn't expect. Like the first film this is more character/relationship driven by the Duo (with Brolin standing in for TLJ).

Frankenweenie - 7 - an indulgent, if well made, Burton fest; too many movie references, imo, and it's just so Burton bland, the madtv sketch of Tim Burton's secret formula is far better than this film, and this film hits every one of the Burton bland characteristics they send up.

the Master - 7 - Amazing performances and photography with a very interesting script does not fix an ultimately boring and tedious film. Possibly should rate it lower, but meh.

The Dictator - 6 - funny at times.

The Girl - 6 - amazing performance by Toby Jones, but an ultimately uninteresting story, and a bit plagued of Easy Riders Raging Bulls syndrome of scandal chasing for stories about hollywood.

Seven Psychopaths - 6 - the trailer was so much better than this mess of a movie. In Bruges was brilliant and this is just a sad, sad remake of Adaptation, neither clever nor effective, lame from beginning to end.

Me @ the Zoo - 6 - indifferent HBO doc on a youtube 'phenom'

Battleship - 4 - you sunk my! This will make an amazing drinking game. hysterically bad.

Dark Knight Rises - 10 (or 9?) - Loved this at the time, have cooled towards it slightly since, can't wait to rewatch it. Why did Batman spend hours painting a batsignal on a bridge though?

I remember thinking maybe he did to get the message out to a BUNCH of people that he was back... But still, he was in a time crunch, probably not the best use of his time. I could be remembering this wrong though, I need to rewatch.

Seven Psychopaths - 6 - the trailer was so much better than this mess of a movie. In Bruges was brilliant and this is just a sad, sad remake of Adaptation, neither clever nor effective, lame from beginning to end.

Oh man, I LOVED this movie. I'm trying to remember the last movie that made me laugh so hard. I've never seen Adaptation though, so maybe that would change my mind?

Tried to write a first impressions post on my phone last night, but it was lost to the nether regions of the internet. :/

The Hobbit - 7

Do not see this in High Frame Rate. The HFR does eliminate 3D eye strain/fatigue as advertised but it's really f****** weird looking. It was compared to videogames, and I think it looks sort of like weird NatGeo greenscreen. Very very very strange and disconcerting. Granted our projector may have been acting up as the effect seemed to oscillate between making motions look sped up (like you've got on a slow fast forward) and looking normal, but the sync never fell off (though the sound did go off twice). out of six people, only one of us liked the HFR look--though everyone did agree that eyestrain was completely eliminated.

I don't think the 3D is that great either, Peter Jackson gives us too much depth of field, imo and it feels like z-axis amateur hour, this is not the beautifully controlled/conducted 3D of Avatar, Hugo or Tintin.

Overall the movie reminded me not of Lord of the Rings but of Peter Jackson's pre-LOTR horror movies. That's not to say the Hobbit has a horror aesthetic, what I mean is those pre-LOTR films had a very very cheeseball and cheeky aesthetic, and cheesy is the best way to describe this film. It's indulgent, long and often self important it feels at times more like a MAD TV or SNL parody of LOTR than something of a piece with Tolkien's writing.

It also feels like to me what we call an Assembly Build. This is what you have before you even put together your first Rough Cut of a film or television show. It's where you have all your scenes together strung out and lined up but you really haven't begun the process of cutting down the film and eliminating scenes and establishing flow and pace--because this film has neither flow nor pace, it's slow and awkward and moves in fits and starts. I asked the other editor that was at the screening with me if she thought the film felt like it was two months away from being finished, and she said, "yeah it's like barely a rough cut." suffice to say that Peter Jackson just cannot cut a movie anymore because no one will say "No" to him, and he apparently can't bare to let any one scene or thing go once he's been shot--the reasons the extended editions are not as good as films as the theatrical versions and the reasons that King Kong is not that great are all in evidence here, only the situation has gotten far far worse than it was when those films were made. The director/producer with us said, "this is just Peter Jackson playing with a big box of toys and thinking it's awesome, that's all this was, there was no character or story or emotion, just toys."

I really hated the prologue, especially the bilbo/Frodo stuff, and the endless narration of the backstory of Erebor seemed terribly written, it was a jolt and a shock when suddenly we were given the first three or four lines of the Hobbit, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." because the words that were Tolkien's were so much better written than the endless ten minutes of Erebor crap.

If it were up to me I'd start with a scene of old bilbo writing, the narration "in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" and then Gandalf's arrival. I'd cut the five minutes with Frodo that were total nonsense and then I'd give a shortened explanation of Erebor that flowed after the Song of the Lonely Mountain Scene--because it makes sense that someone should tell Bilbo wtf is going on, as it is we have the story being explained to Frodo but no one ever tells Bilbo wtf they're planning on doing. I'd probably cut the Break the Plates song and I'd cut all of Radagasts scenes, I'd cut Saruman, Galadrial and Azog/Moria. All this fan-service-fellating crap can go in the f****** extended edition on dvd.

Shockingly that means I'd basically cut all the bullshit that was not in the book, all the rubbish that comes from the damned appendices other than explaining the plot to reclaim the Lonely Mountain.

that said, I did not hate the film, there is much to love here. The Goblin King is wonderful, Gollum/Smeagol/Riddles in the Dark is wonderful, The trolls are absurdly silly and the opening with the Dwarves at dinner was pretty great. And the finale of out of the frying pan into the fire was terrific.

But overall, this is far away from the near perfection and excellence of the LOTR movies.

I have a feeling the nerd-community reaction to this film is going to be vitriol on the level of Phantom Menace.

I'm seeing The Hobbit tonight so I can't comment yet, but given the weaker source material I've never expected The Hobbit films to be as good as LotR.

My random thoughts about The Hobbit:

- It was good, but not amazing.
- The biggest problem was the length. I believe it's about 15-20 minutes shy of 3 hours, which of course makes it shorter than any of the LotR films, but there's less story to tell here. I think most people who are familiar with The Hobbit have had their doubts about how such a simple story could be extended into 8-9 hours of film, and while it didn't feel as unnaturally stretched out (like butter spread across too much bread ) as I feared, some sequences did feel drawn out. On the other hand, fleshing out the back story was appreciated.
- I did see it at the high frame rate. All I can say is that it was the most realistic movie experience that I have ever had. 3D has never felt so natural to me. It looked and felt like everything was actually happening around me. However, movements often felt unnaturally fast, and that was certainly weird to say the least. I can certainly see why it's not everyone's cup of tea, so I really can't say whether it should be seen at the high frame rate or not. I don't think that you can know if you'll like it until you see it for yourself. I personally can't think of anything to compare it to.
- The film is more light-hearted than the LotR movies. Many of the songs from the book are included, but it's certainly not a musical, and they don't seemed forced, out of place, or lame. On the other hand, it's not as light-hearted as the source material. There are no talking animals, for instance.
- All things considered I definitely enjoyed it but wasn't blown away.

I think the biggest fix would have been to cut some of the action scenes to be a bit shorter and less goofy. And the whole Azog/Thorin thing wasn't really necessary, especially on the pre-Rivendell stretch of the journey.

The music was lovely, and I wouldn't have minded some elven singing as well.

I agree about trimming the action scenes, but as for the Thorin/Azog subplot, I think that this part of the story benefited from having a main antagonist. And there'll probably be a great final showdown between them in the Battle of Five Armies.

I have a feeling the nerd-community reaction to this film is going to be vitriol on the level of Phantom Menace.

I don't think it's going to be quite as bad as that. I definitely see the parallels, especially in how much they try to force a connection to the original trilogy. It's like they're winking at the audience and saying "HEY LOOK, IT'S LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIES!". The difference is that this is a much, much better movie. It's a better story, with better characters and better actors.

I did have issues with some of the changes, but on the whole, I enjoyed it very much. I've never thought Ian McKellen was quite right for Gandalf, and that was even more true in this movie. And I hated the whole Erebor Prologue and the scene at the beginning with Frodo and Bilbo getting ready for the party (HEY LOOK, IT'S LIKE IN THE OTHER MOVIE!).

That being said, I LOVED the songs, and wish they'd included the elf song as well. I really enjoyed the character of Radagast (he's closer to how I envisioned Gandalf when I read the books), even if I'm not sure he's strictly necessary. I was also shocked when the movie ended and I realized it was almost 3 hours later - it really felt like a 2-hour movie to me (I know I'm in the minority here).

Overall I'd give it a 7, and I'm looking forward to the next 2.

I haven't watched it yet but based on the suggestions of Kirsten last year and Adam this year, I finally grabbed a copy of White Christmas and will be watching it most likely on Christmas Eve; I'm pretty stoked.

Seriously best Christmas movie ever. Danny Kaye is one of my favorite actors of all time.

I hope you enjoy watching it!

(I've never recommended it to you? What's wrong with me? It's my favorite!)

I still haven't seen The Hobbit (but i totally mean to). Nevertheless, i thought i'd share this strip from CAD:


I remember, when i first read the novel (i was already in high school), how disturbing and creepy i thought it was the way Gandalf and his homeless fri the dwarves intruded in poor Bilbo's house, taking his compliance for granted, and pressuring him into something he very much didn't want.

I had to keep telling myself "this is a novel for kids, kids will find this funny rather than creepy".
Which is even more disturbing

The Odd Life of Timothy Green was amazing and sweet; I loved it and am only sorry I thought it looked stupid when I first heard about it.

Les Miserables - 10

Uhhh....why is Thorin Oakenshield, the dwarf, the main character in the film version of The Hobbit, instead of Bilbo, who is, ya know, THE HOBBIT?

Les Miserables - 10

QFT