I was just pointing out that you original statement wasn’t true, especially when it came to this particular film franchise.
The rise of film programs at many universities means that some critics have also gone to school for film studies, journalism, or English, frequently with a concentration in arts criticism. Now, those who review movies on their own blogs might not have that background, but the critics who write for major publications often do. And that’s really what matters in this instance, since they’re the ones who (wrongly) get accused of not liking mainstream entertainment.
And my only point was: I don’t and never could rely only on critics for what I like. Just because they pan a movie really means nothing.
However, I must say I need to bow out of this thread now. It’s not like I haven’t read the book, but I haven’t seen the movie, and if it’s now “open spoilers” I don’t want to read anymore in case I see something I don’t want to see.
Me too. I wasn’t expecting the thread I posted in to have spoilers, since it was for people who had seen the movie to communicate with people who hadn’t—I think it was a mistake to merge the threads, but that’s just MHO.
I started that thread, and I disagree. My thread was focused entirely on the critics’ negative reactions, and in this thread it’s a derailing side discussion to the generally positive and personal reaction-based “I saw it” threads.
Every review I’ve read so far has rated the film as mediocre and way too long. While critics seem to be trying to find the good in the film, and to be gentle, the consensus is that it just doesn’t make the grade, possibly suffering from overexposure to blockbuster special effect films like Avatar and others.
Of course you shouldn’t use anybody else (critic or not) to decide what you like. But presumably, since you don’t time to watch everything that comes out, you have some method, ultimately an arbitrary one, for deciding how to prioritize the stuff you will give a change to find out you like?
I would never say “I like X because Armand White said it is good.” But I might say “Armand White says X is good and I’ve found he has taste similar to mine so I’m going to move that up my list to see.” Or “Elvis Mitchell and I agree on nothing but westerns so when he says Rom Com X is awful that doesn’t impact my interest level much.”
Then sometimes, after having seen something I respond strongly too, one way or another, I go to critics to see if they can maybe shed an interesting light on what it is liked or hated about it.
But if you think you’re supposed to like or hate something because critics say so, I think you’re blaming them for something they’re not doing.
I don’t think they wrongly get accused of anything. I was listening to NPR this morning and they had two critics on talking about The Hobbit. Neither of them liked it, however the approaches they took were very different. One bitched about the frame rate, the other just hates fantasy movies and admitted as much. Now how the hell are we supposed to get a critical, reasonably unbiased opinion from someone who disowns an entire genre of film? As to the other reviewer, he preferred the regular rate version, and had a focused on complaining about stretching the films for money rather than any specific complaint at all. Most of the Critical reviews I’ve read seem to be in the same vein. Whiny verbal diarrehea moaning about how it doesn’t look the way everything else does, or simple dissing of the genre.
I’ve said for a long time that papers should have a double review; their standard critic, and a genre critic that can provide perspective on the film as it relates to others of it’s type. It is one thing when a critic who hates all horror movies gives the newest ghost story a crap review. It is quite another when someone who is a horror fan and film critic does the same.
As a huge fan of the hobbit book, I’m excited as all get out for my Sunday viewing. Even if I have quibbles, I will also be glad that finally, *finally *we will get to see one, thorough, complete vision of Middle Earth.
As I said in another thread, Radagast was awful. Just fucking awful.
The fight scenes had no tension at all (“Oh fuck it’s a hundred orcs! I’ll take this pole and knock a dozen over the edge here… a dozen over the edge there… oh fuck it’s a hundred more orcs! I’ll just deflect a half dozen arrows with my sword and catch half a dozen orcs in a ladder… oh fuck it’s another hundred orcs! I’ll just summon a boulder to roll down the path ahead of us bowling them out of our way…”) and I couldn’t get worked up every time they run for their lives, either on the plains after Radagast pointlessly delays the warg riders or when they’re deep underground, or when they’re caught in the middle of a giant Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots game. It’s like in Attack of the Clones when Anakin jumps out of the speeder, falls a few hundred feet and lands on one just as it happens to zip by at the perfect moment: It shatters any suspension of disbelief and tension is gone.
Radagast and cartoony video-game action sequences aside… I found the movie pretty entertaining. Me and my friends were the only ones in the theater (don’t ask) and we were watching it MST3k-style. I knew it’d be a fun experience when Thorin tells Gandalf something like “You know I can’t promise his safety, right?” and, after a long pause, Gandalf responds “I know” and we all throw our hands in the air laughing.
It was a fun movie and I think the next one will be great as long as we don’t see Radagast again. We won’t see him again, right? Right?
I really enjoyed it. And I enjoyed Radagast. I love silly campy humour, Martin Freeman, Sylvester McCoy, Gollum, sweeping landscapes, and fight scenes. All right up my street.
I forgot it was a trilogy though. I thought to myself, they won’t have much time to do in this dragon…oh it’s finished.
Errr… I know I have a defective sense of humor sometimes, but what’s so funny about that?
(I’ll see it in a few weeks, after the hoopla’s died down. I think I might take advantage of this weekend to go see Skyfall in a presumably empty theatre, though. :))
I also saw it … I didn’t expect our local cinema to support 48fps, so I was surprised to see it and noticed it within seconds. It was clear that Jackson wanted me to notice it, as he put in a lot of fast panning scenes in the opening. What I think was a shame however was that he neglected to make them functional beyond the opening. It was almost as if there was a long internal struggle in his mind about keeping the Dragon a mostly hidden enemy in those opening scenes, Spielberg style. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but the fast panning screens would have been far more suitable for a perspective view from Smaug. I would have told the opening of the story from his perspective.
There were definitely a bunch of over the top scenes as mentioned above, and I very quickly felt that I could show this movie to our young son, right until I saw the Warrgs, which they managed to do a good job on making them as scary as I thought they were when my father read the Hobbit to me as a bed-time story when I was about 6. I also loved the way the Troll King looked.
Overall, I don’t think a 9 hour movie is stretching it. It’s just a matter of the director being comfortable enough with all the space that affords. Jackson in this case tries to make motivations of why the characters do what they do more clearly, and I think he succeeds mostly, but still needs to find his footing a bit - I expect the movies will get better. I do agree that the makup of the dwarfs is a bit all over the place, with some dwarfs being far too recogniseable / human and others completely over the top, almost Disney style.
I’m finding Bilbo much more sympathetic than Frodo (Frodo and Sam’s scenes in the last two LotR films made them impossible for me to rewatch, and I generally hate skipping scenes).
It took me about an hour before I got used to the 48fps, but I very, very strongly welcome it and hope it never goes away. It’s clear that the industry will have to get used to it a little and the new camera’s still have to catch up (they have less time to capture the colors properly), but I have been irritated by panning scenes sooo many times, and ever since HD came along that has become the biggest bottleneck. It’s clear that with this bottleneck removed new ones pop up, but hey, such is the course of progress. But progress, it definitely is!
It’s not a question of how much horsepower a TV set has, it’s a question of whether it was designed to play a specific flavor of video, in this case 48 fps. Modern panels will play video at 23.976, 25, 29.97, 50, 59.94 fps because those are all SD and HD video standards. To the best of my knowledge 48fps currently is not.
That said, it is possible that some sets could do that frame rate, as panels are essentially computer monitors there days, but I don’t know that any do. Obviously the digital projectors playing The Hobbit can do that rate, but I don’t see any reason why existing consumer electronics would support that rate out of the box.
I, for one, absolutely loved it and can’t wait for the next two versions. It’s been long enough since I read the book that I can’t remember exactly every detail that changed from the book, but I didn’t mind the addition of the white orc, and I loved the scenes with Radagast and his rabbit sleigh, though having his face coated with guano might have been a bit much. (I almost teared up when it looked like his porcupine was going to die). I went in expecting a whimsical fantasy romp and I was not disappointed.
To answer Dodgy’s question: the movie ends just after Bilbo acquires the Ring, the dwarves escape from the goblin kingdom, and the Eagles rescue Bilbo and company from the orcs.
The movie contains the following action sequences;
Flashback to the fall of Erebor when Smaug first attacked.
Flashback to Thrain and Thorin’s failed attempt to reconquer Khazad-Dum from the orcs.
The dwarves attempt to rescue Bilbo from the trolls and are captured.
Bilbo and company are pursued by wargs and orcs before reaching Rivendell.
Flashback to Radagast scouting Dol Guldur and encountering the Necromancer.
Bilbo and company are bystanders to a battle between storm giants.
The dwarves, sans Bilbo and Gandalf, are captured by the goblins and fight their way out of the caves.
Bilbo and company are chased up trees by the wargs and are rescued by the eagles.
As I said, I haven’t read the book in some time, but I’m pretty sure 3-4 and 6-8 are in the book, and 1-2 are alluded to. 5 I’m not sure, but might have been in the appendices.