Films you've seen lately

[gingerjon]

It's a tough one gj - I've seen some films that I've loved that I'd never have seen if I hadn't had to take the kids - 'How to train your Dragon' being one

Heard a few recommends about that in the past few weeks. Same team that did Rise of the Guardians I believe.

The one I definitely would never have seen but which is actually genuinely good fun is Mr Popper's Penguins.

[kleines c]

c

[Nick Armstrong]

I only go to the cinema now to crowd control two small children.

Similar considerations (not-so-small children, but comparable 'kettling' aims...) prompted a visit to "The Hobbit" over the holidays.

I enjoyed it far more than I'd expected. Apart from about 20 minutes too many devoted to battle scenes, and the band of dwarves with silly rhyming names and the concomitant smirking from Sreen McKellan's wizard, I was impressed.

The scenes later in the film in the huge subterranean domain of the goblins were stunning, like enormous works by Hieronymous Bosch (and the unrecognisable Barry Humphries's 'Grand Goblin' wonderful), for instance. The "HFR" technology (48 frames per sec. instead of the usual cinematic 24) made some sections startlingly immediate, and the swooping 3D camera work over mountains and chasms really set the adrenalin pumping.

[Flosshilde]

I did go to see 'Life of Pi', in 3D. I was inclined to think that the book wouldn't transfer to the screen, & I think I was right. The problem is the internal nature of the book and the inevitably external nature of the film. Reading the book you become the character - you experience what he is experiencing, think his thoughts. Watching the film (any film, in fact), however, you are simply watching what happens to him.

Even if I hadn't read the book I don't think I would have enjoyed the film. It was too long - the conversation between the author & Pi was obviously a means of conveying what Pi told the reader directly - & the India section too long. The 'lost at sea' episodes I found rather unconvincing - especially as the conditions seemed to veer from terrific storms to flat calm; doesn't open sea normally have a swell? I suspect that the two extremes were used because they gave the best opportunities for the use of 3D. In fact there seemed to be rather too many 'beautiful' set pieces designed to show off 3D. I just found them rather intrusive & irritating. Is the story enhanced by having a giant humming-bird hovering in the middle of the auditorium, or fish swimming about in front of your face? It seems to me a device not designed to make the film seem more real, but to increase its unreality, especially as, in scenes with figures in the foreground it made them look like flat cut-outs positioned in front of a painted back-cloth.

And the glasses were physically irritating & distracting.

[Anna]

I've now seen the trailer for Life of Pi and I admit it doesn't appeal (our local doesn't say it's 3D so I assume it's in normal mode, I'm not sure I would be happy with 3D as being disorientating) I wondered about The Hobbit and it's interesting that Caliban enjoyed it, I have not read the book for either film, but I've still got a couple of days in which to catch Hobbit but the one coming up which I do fancy is Quartet. Was there a thread about it somewhere, has anyone seen it?

[Flosshilde]

Anna, I don't think that it was a seperate thread, but referred to in another thread.

I thought I'd seen a pretty poor review of Quartet, which I assumed was in the Guardian, but this one - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/...dustin-hoffman - is actually very good. It may be that the review/ers in the print edition are not the same as in the on-line edition.

[Anna]

Thanks Flossie, having quickly played the trailer (I'll read the review later) this does seem my kind of film. (bit of a gurley feel good factor!) We are due to have it here at the beginning of February

[johncorrigan]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]

(and the unrecognisable Barry Humphries's 'Grand Goblin' wonderful), for instance.

Brilliant! Never realised it was Bazza, Caliban - that bit where he lands on the dwarves was greatly unexpected. By the way Anna, on the subject of 'Quartet', Billy Connolly made for a very good interview with Kirsty Wark on BBC2's Review Show on Friday evening, talking about the film among other things.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01plpw1

[Nick Armstrong]

3D. ... in scenes with figures in the foreground it made them look like flat cut-outs positioned in front of a painted back-cloth.

Sorry it didn't 'do it' for you, Floss.

I do agree with you that in the type of scenes you mention, 3D is hopelessly unrealistic and artificial... it paradoxically reduces characters to 2D, doesn't it, where there's a distant background.

[Flosshilde]

I expect it's very good in films I wouldn't normally go & see I hope they never do a '3D' version of, for example, Fred Astaire's films, in the way that there was a brief vogue for 'colourising' (or should that be 'colorizing', as it happened in Hollywood) b&w films.

I rather think that it's part of the 'dumbing down' process. We've had 500 years of understanding that a flat image can represent something three dimensional; now film-makers seem to think that people can no longer apply the imagination necessary & need everything to be made explicit.

[kleines c]

c

[Anna]

Flossie I totally agree with you, let's face the music and dance without the aid of 3D.

Btw, is is just me or is there an intensely annoying fly hovering about? Swat, Swat, bugger off!

[antongould]

Criminal daughter has just sent me this review

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/some-parents-cry-i-fell-asleep-les-misery-of-watching-les-misrables-8412978.html

Like "the fat bloke from Gladiators..."

[Nick Armstrong]

Criminal daughter has just sent me this review

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/some-parents-cry-i-fell-asleep-les-misery-of-watching-les-misrables-8412978.html

Like "the fat bloke from Gladiators..."

Having had to endure the trailers on various cinema trips this festive season, I can say for certain this is a film I will never see.

[Flosshilde]

Far too many priceless bits to quote

An interesting point (or not) - The Royal Naval College at Greenwich is standing in for Paris. Ken Russel also used it as a stand-in for St Petersburg in The Music Lovers.

I hasten to point out that, like Caliban, I have only seen the trailer, which is more than enough.