1

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Faldor wrote:

See, I turned Spy off about an hour in. wink

Haha, fair enough.

If Ghostbusters wasn't a cash-grab of an existing property I might have felt very differently.

2

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

That's interesting Faldor, I couldn't make it through half the movie myself. I found no stakes, no tension at all, nothing to keep me interested, no arc or sense of direction to the story. Plus the only laughs I got were from Chris Hemsworth, because he looked like he wasn't trying soooooo hard to be funny at every moment, like the rest of the cast (Kate Mckinnon especially).

I found no redeeming qualities at all from the first hour I watched. The editing in particular was almost comically inept. Some scenes were ended so abruptly I started laughing to myself.

Every scare was undercut with jokes, nothing was scary. They have a scene where a ghost shows up in a subway tunnel. Constricted, cramped dark space with a ghost, potential to be pretty scary right?

Nope.

1. They walk literally about 30 feet into the tunnel, and you can still see the lit, populated platform behind them. No sense of claustrophobia or isolation.
2. The tunnel is lit to hell and back, giving no sense of atmosphere or darkness.
3. Ghost looks like a guy in a suit color-corrected blue. Not scary.

The person who encountered the ghost gets scared and runs away from the camera, and I was expecting them to be chased, because that would imply the ghost atleast being a threat of some sort. Nope, the scene just ends with the person running from a stationary camera.

The whole movie is lit like a fucking sitcom. It looks like a childrens show, color everywhere, warm and bright.


I've enjoyed Paul Feig before, I really liked "Spy" and was laughing like hell throughout that one. Why he even bothered with this one I'll never know.

3

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Sam F wrote:
TechNoir wrote:

There is sooo much technobabble and l33t hacking, and while it's almost never well done, in this one it felt _really_ dumbed down, which was a shame since it was such a big part of the plot.

The part that induced an audible "pfft" from me was...

Spoiler Show
... when the CEO of the big tech company (who was very well cast, I thought) got on stage and told everyone "No one is watching you," and the crowd erupted in applause. Not even Apple could get away with that. Maybe if he explained to them how that was the case, I would have been okay with it. Like Apple explaining the security of Touch ID. But then that was the whole thing, they actually were watching them. Just a silly scene.

Not to mention that

Spoiler Show
the service their company provides is described as delivering tailored content for the users, meaning they by definition have to be watching everything you do and learning from it.

I also loved the part where

Spoiler Show
Bourne and an associate decided to open an unsecured and unknown USB drive, that they'd stolen, on a PC that is wide-open to the internet, allowing the spyware on the USB drive to call home to CIA, who then hack into a cell-phone in the same apartment, and via that access the computer and turn the power off with the click of a button, after which they proudly proclaim that the sensitive data was safely "deleted". How you delete something when you clearly immediately shut off the computer is unknown to me, harddrives need power to perform any operations, including deleting files. Also if they were able to perform a quick-delete of the drive contents (assuming it took less than a second which is highly unlikely), they simply wiped the file table of the hard drive, and it's typically easy to recreate most or all the data with a data recovery program in those cases. Either way they clearly didn't do anything and the movie should know better if it wants to be a cyber-thriller of any sort.

4

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Sam F wrote:

http://media.comicbook.com/2016/02/jasonbourneposter-168732-640x320.png

I saw Jason Bourne over the weekend. Pretty meh. It felt like a 15-year-old wrote it. Just a stale, by-the-book spy movie. Nothing new or compelling to offer. It makes me question why they wanted to revamp the franchise.

I'll echo that. Also while I was fairly into the action, it was constantly chaotic, shaky and quickly edited, and not really engaging since you could not anticipate almost anything happening, it just happens and you kind of hope your eyes will catch it.

The writing let it down though mainly. There is sooo much technobabble and l33t hacking, and while it's almost never well done, in this one it felt _really_ dumbed down, which was a shame since it was such a big part of the plot.

5

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

ShadowDuelist wrote:

Is that image from the porn parody?

I would hope so. Though the production design on those things looks to be getting a lot better, unless this still is not indicative of the actual product.

6

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I have similar feelings on ID:R.

All the Alien tech and stuff they gave the humans just deflated the tension for me. I'm not really interested in seeing a future earth battle aliens. I want to see current earth with the limitations we have fight aliens.
Plus I don't buy the fact that, supposedly, humanity, in just 20 years, were able to allocate huge R&D resources, break down and reverse engineer the alien technology, and manufacture working helicopters, space ships etc.

All this while most major cities in the world were blown to pieces, probably crippling manufacturing and infrastructure.


I thought about what I would like to see, before even seeing the film, and where I would take the 2nd installment if I had to brainstorm a bit.
What I came up with was probably too close to "District 9" or "Battle Los Angeles" to be worth doing, but I think the best way to make a 2nd ID film would be to set it as us fighting the aliens that would presumably be left alive on earth. This aspect I was surprised was actually dealt with in the movie, but those aliens were either just rounded up easily and held in a prison of sorts, or we saw skulls from ones previously exterminated, and it didn't really make any difference to the plot.

I would have wanted a still crippled earth, as we still would be exploring and finding out more about the aliens, to find there is still a threat from aliens left on earth. You could still have a queen alien, if you wanted that, emerge from a bigger ship that landed in a distant area on earth that we didn't hear about in the first movie, and revelations could be made about plans the aliens have to finish the job, or do something else. I think that basic framework is much more interesting and the earth being still very crippled would be interesting to see.

Squiggly_P wrote:

I took a shot at it quickly, though for some reason I didn't just pull your original. I don't know why.
I also know nothing about color correction. Oh, and I'm color blind.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v611/Squiggly_P/Spideyshot_002_zpsuxcnraji.jpg

Mainly done to see if I could do it without blowing out the reds. Fail.
Also, the contrast is too high in your edit (personal preference).

Mine looks like crap, tho.


I like it, to my eyes though the backgrounds shift to magenta a bit in your edit. If we assume this is a fairly cloudless day I'd probably keep it sliiightly bluer than neutral, rather than pushing towards magenta.

I increased the contrast a bit to better sell the feeling of a daylit scene, where the original shot looks quite flat and overcast. MJ also to me in the still looks like she's squinting a bit as if bright clouds only faintly hide the sun above.

I do postprocessing of my own cinefilm-negatives so I've gotten fairly used to doing color work, whether that shows or not is up for debate though. wink

Also I'm red-green deficient, though I think it's fairly mild and I can still see the colors easily, though I think they are less saturated or separated than for other people so color test charts with small dots next to one another don't separate well.

The Spidey FIYH you guys recorded are hugely entertaining Teague. smile

Teague wrote:

The term we may be looking for is 'high-key lighting.'


Yeah, Spidey 2 is a lot better on every level of cinematography. The more I'm watching the first one, the more claustrophobic I get from the tight shots, the more the skintones bother me, and the overall look. The camera angles seem clunky, there's no sense of the space they're in. Sometimes you don't see the lightsources via an establishing shot of sorts, making the light sources seem nebulous.

Alex wrote:

First Matrix is definitely more tastefully done with the green. The sequels are just GREEN, but that may be a feature, not a bug--the Matrix was being "taken over" by Smith, so progressively intensifying the green-ness was a way to show that.

My problem with the Raimi Spiderman movies is pretty much identical to Brian's, so if you've listened to the podcast (which you should) I'm basically just repeating what he's said.

I don't wanna go on forever, but basically the movies are lit and colored like soap operas. Clearly they're going for a "real life with a bit of comic book pop," but for one reason or another it just doesn't take; instead, everyone looks like skin surrounded by primary colors, all lit with no shadows (or too many--either way, it's always unnatural). Maybe it's exacerbated by the fact that every line is written like it's being said by an alien trying to blend in.

I just can't stand those movies. Even the second one, which is apparently the "really good one," is awful IMO. There's more to it than the coloring/lighting/dialogue, though, which is beyond the scope of this thread.


That clarifies it, thanks Alex. Considering Bill Pope shot both Spidey 2 and The Matrix, it was probably Raimi or someone else who wanted that look.

There definitely seems to be some warming filter at play in the first Spiderman at times (if not achieved in post), and when comparing to a more neutral, conventional look it's kind of obvious, and it does look like a soft, flat warm soap-y scene, shot through a red curtain. At times it looks like the negative doesn't have any contrast put back into it and was just left with the shadows open.

For fun I grabbed a PNG of what is probably the worst-looking scene I remember for the first one:

http://i.imgur.com/da1ocvL.jpg


And here it is with some added contrast, and kind of neutralizing the warming filter:

http://i.imgur.com/uS4BH3P.jpg

Alex wrote:

Thing is, the "corrected" shot from The Other Guys also looks like shit. It looks precisely like the Raimi Spiderman movies.

I think the ideal is some place in between the two, but also, yeah, maybe not so much emphasis on the teal. The Dark Knight and The Matrix pulled off that look, but anything with Will Ferrell just shouldn't even go there.


To be honest I don't remember the 1st Spiderman to look bad. I think a few sequences were a bit too red-yellow looking which I think is your complaint (the Green Goblin parade attack being the biggest one, where this still comes from: http://www.rellimzone.com/images/movies … e-06.png), plus the lighting was a bit uninteresting in some sequences.

I'm looking at a bluray copy now and to me the biggest problem I have is that it looks pan&scan due to, in my opinion, slightly too tight framing in most scenes, even though 1.85 was the intended frame from what I've read. I'm skipping around and so much seems to be medium or close-up shots, but claustrophobically tight a lot of the time.

Spiderman 2 has much of the same color palette, only it's widescreen since they wanted to fit Doc Oc and spiderman into the same frame.
Color to me looks fine, neutral, no real tints in either way mostly. Anything in particular that bothers you with the look of the Spidey movies?


I think I read the Dark Knight was finished without a Digital Intermediate, so while they likely did global timing/optical color corrections of scenes in the print, they didn't actually do split toning or any other color changes. At most they likely simply made a blue hour shot slightly less blue or green, basic adjustments to make daylight scenes look neutral and not slightly warm or cold, etc.
I think you and I are the same there, those types of changes never really bother me. It's like looking at a scene through a colored glass. However pushing colors around only in certain areas of the spectrum is where it tends to become more problematic, since you end up with completely normal skintones in the midrange, but then a green tint in shadow areas, which looks very unnatural.

Taking "Heat" as an example, I believe they used Tungsten balanced stock in daylight with no correcting filter, giving the daylight scenes a cold tone. They didn't unnaturally saturate orange skintones back into the image, so it has a very uniform, "natural" looking tint:

http://i.imgur.com/WBY4ZEh.png

However I do remember the 1st Matrix not bothering me, but the 2nd and 3rd ones for some reason I don't like the look of. I think the coloring is pretty much identical between all 3, but the film stock used for the first gives it a grit that the 2nd and 3rd don't have, and that makes the green cast not work as well to my eyes due to the clarity of the 2nd and 3rd. Maybe that's just me though. smile

Faldor wrote:
TechNoir wrote:

The first image seems so relatable, natural, earth-like colors, a window frame anyone could identify with, and the the huge contrast with the ship.

The second image... jesus, I can't tell what's going on, never mind what planet it's happening on.

It's London, the weather is always a bit shit...

Like cats and dogs... Literally.

Teague wrote:

Yeah.  hmm

There are answers to these questions, and nobody likes any of them. I'd lay out some of the major ones, but I'm at work and must resist writing a treatise.

I'm a few hours ahead, didn't even consider some of us still have work to do.  wink Hope you're doing well Teague.

Teague wrote:

Remember that Independence Day, Seven, The Princess Bride, and Casablanca were all colored with chemicals and math in a dark room, and everything since the early 2000's has been photoshopped seventeen times before being seen by anybody. *shrug* It's not even a difference in photography after a certain point, but a difference in universes.

I mean, it does look like ass, in my opinion, but I have that opinion about a lot of things.


True. I guess my main point is that, indeed, it does look like garbage. I guess I'm just depressed that someone like a director of photography, who I would imagine has quite a say in the visual presentation and probably (hopefully) was with the colorist would let something like this happen.

It just seems entirely braindead and unmotivated, I cannot imagine what it's supposed to do, other than just convey "sci-fi" to a general audience and hope the green buys them some automatic bonus points for looking like the other things in the genre.

I'd imagine at some point there must at least be someone who designed something, like the colors of makeup or wardrobe, and then sees the final images and kind of vomits in their own mouths just a little bit at the monochrome teal.


Maybe I wouldn't even care if I wasn't interested in photography myself.  hmm

A example I did a while ago was the coloring of "The Other Guys", the Will Ferrell comedy. It's not even sci-fi, and skin color looks so disgusting with teal creeping into the shadows, like there's green moss growing in the folds of the actors face. Ugh.

A screenshot from the film:
http://i.imgur.com/FujWUGU.jpg

Corrected:
http://i.imgur.com/Ienc17g.jpg

Do a google search for trailer images, and it's just a wall of amorphous shapes slathered in toxic gas green.

It's quite stunning to watch the difference from ID4 to this one. The first Independence Day is extremely well photographed, in my opinion, from minuatures up.

I mean jesus, the new film looks like it takes place on an alien planet judging by the look of everything. Not a single image from the trailer reminds me of anything I'd see in real life. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to connect to any of it.

The trend continues, it seems. I'd love to hear the rationale behind the choice. Hell, maybe earth is a cold looking wasteland shrouded in a green mist of toxic fumes for all I know...


I can't believe we've gone from this:

http://i.imgur.com/woSkR70.png


to this:

http://static.highsnobiety.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/08163142/independence-day-resurgence-trailer-00.jpg


The first image seems so relatable, natural, earth-like colors, a window frame anyone could identify with, and the the huge contrast with the ship.

The second image... jesus, I can't tell what's going on, never mind what planet it's happening on.

Alex wrote:

Oh. My. God.

...

With no disrespect to the debaters, I hoped I'd get a chance to return this glorious moment in cinema.

http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2013/1/7/cage37.gif

Alex wrote:
TechNoir wrote:

OK, how about this feeling I've had for a while: Hans Zimmer is the worst thing to happen to film music in recent years.

He has done alot of great and moving work in the past, and glimpses of good work recently. But also recently, his dense orchestrations, repeating, epic ostinatos and thick mixes as heard in movies like The Dark Knight, Inception, Man Of Steel, have seen his soundtracks move in the direction of substituting intelligence and subtlety, and replacing it with nothing short of a repetitive, increasingly derivative, aureal assault. There simply isn't room for anything intelligent or interesting to compete with the onslaught of string and brass chords. Everything is structured in easily digested 4/4 meter with no rhythmic flair whatsoever. It's radio pop, now also in soundtrack form.

Now if it was just Zimmer though I'd be OK with it. But a consequence of this general style/approach still being sought after by studios and alot of moviegoers is that almost every major blockbuster is required to include elements of it. As a music lover and hobby composer I'm sick of it.

As much good music Zimmer has made over the years, a big part of me wishes he wouldn't have taken the mainstream soundtrack world with as much storm as he did.

*cracks knuckles*

Ok. I hate to hijack this thread with the first reply to it, but this is one of those oft-repeating topics that I feel the need to clear up.

........

Ok I'm done now.


For the sake of completion I noticed I didn't reply to this comment and I want to say thanks for the long write-up, we have a lot of points of agreement.

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(353 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Be'lakor has a new album approaching, so for those who like Metal it might be interesting. Sounds absolutely sublime:

19

(51 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Eddie wrote:

Just randomly stumbling in here.  No reason at all.....nope.  None.

Just.....sayin hey.  No reason to get hype or anything.

(prepare to get hype.  Big announcement coming soon.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Iw2tD … &t=56s

20

(16 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Of the 26 2015 films I've seen, Fury Road leads followed by Sicario. I really hope Deakins gets a cinematography win, Sicario is so downplayed in a way, but he does so much with so little. The shot of the soldiers at sunset descending below the horizon as the camera lands perfectly on the cloud formation in the distance... Beauty. I've yet to see The Revenant however.

Worst big film goes to Genisys, followed closely by the Poltergeist remake.

21

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Spectre (2015) - 5/10 (7.1)

http://www.galleonnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Spectre-2015-James-Bond-High-Resolution-Photo-9l12m-Free.jpeg

Unfocused enough to lack immersive qualities, and the tone is all over the place. Sometimes goofy, tension-less action mixes with fairly long stretches of time where the, admittedly, nice cinematography is the only really impressive thing on display. Multiple villains, techno-babble plot, and a criminally underused Christoph Waltz playing a character lacking any depth on paper.
I'm trying to think of a scene from the film, but most of it is already gone from my memory.
Highlight of the film is the sweeping opening section with some very impressive camerawork and choreography, and atmosphere.


American Ultra (2015) - 5/10 (6.1)

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2015/05/28/american-ultra.jpg

Has a certain charm at times, but this is not a tight film. Direction seems generally aimless, Only some good performances, one which belongs to Kristen Stewart. Writing is derivative, and whatever wit exists on paper either direction or the actors often fail to really sell.


The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) - 7/10 (7.4)

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/2015/08/11/the-man-from-uncle.jpg

Quite enjoyable. Feels generally conventional, safe, and sometimes artificial in plotting, character dynamics or presentation in a kind of "Oceans Twelve - we're just cool dudes riffing and having fun" kind of way. However I was not bored watching this, and I wouldn't mind a sequel at all.


Ringu (1998) - 7/10 (7.3)

http://images.dead-donkey.com/images/clipboard038ej.png

Today not as mind-blowing as it might have been when it came out, but it's a tight horror story with a refreshingly sparse, downtuned and relaxed feel. Very well directed for the most part. Often much is conveyed with very little.


Poltergeist (2015) - 3/10 (5.0)

http://theslaughteredbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poltergeist-2015-DI-1.jpg

This remake can go die in a pool filled with skeletons. Astonishingly inferior in every single way to the original. Uninspired, lazy, flat, anorexic film.



Madeo (2009) - 9/10 (7.8)

http://i.imgur.com/27UF5pR.jpg

Bong Joon-Ho is probably in my top 3 favourite directors at the moment. I really like "Snowpiercer" and I love "Memories of Murder", and this film is pretty much a perfect gem aswell. A mother must try to clear her son of murder charges. Acting is superb, cinematography is just so damn good. Story has twists, and yet feels natural and not convoluted.

Direction however is the highlight. Bong Joon-Ho is a real master of tone. It's a surreal mix of drama, comedy, absurd situations, slapstick, gripping emotion and violence. The movie can effortlessly have several of these existing simultaneously in a scene, and it's effortlessly clear what the intention of it is.

Very, very recommended.

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(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Tomahawk wrote:

http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/movieposters/3531967/p3531967_p_v7_aa.jpg

Shutter Island (2010) - 9/10

.....

From the same screenwriter that brought us Terminator: Genisys. Shutter Island was based on a novel it seems.

23

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

JW Spoilers:

  Show

fireproof78 wrote:

I personally like Jurassic World, but it just felt surface level to me. Most of the characters were caricatures who really needed at least one more pass on their writing and motivation to be solid. I think Owen and Claire are really the only exception. Hoskins and Wu's point of view are an interesting outgrowth of the JP world building, but not explored enough.

The dinos were ok, but really were not allowed to do much. Also, I get tired of people in peril because of *reasons* to add drama. There were tinges of man trying to assert dominance over the dinos that could be seen as the "control" theme from JP, and in that, I credit JW.

In short, JW felt more like a first draft of a potentially excellent film, but just was very shallow, with only a couple of original ideas that I liked. But, the tone and style was similar enough to JP that I felt like it was more a spiritual sequel to the original than LW or JP III were.


I thought about it, and would you agree though that JW somewhat subverts the control theme. In some instances, JW shows the control work to the humans advantage. The raptors do the bidding of Chris Pratt at the end after all, and the T-Rex is essentially manipulated into the path of the I-Rex. It seems like a muddled message that goes against the first movies theme of more consistently showing the futility in controlling nature.

Unless one considers Pratt a good kind of control, more nurturing than dominating (the domination being D'onofrio's military man) . I guess that was a theme, but yeah, a few more passes of the script could probably have actually clarified that. Whatever scraps of thematic elements there are have no supporting structure, or have conflicting themes at other points. Nothing is really singular about it at all, you sort of have to guess at some things, and you need to ignore contradicting elements sometimes to arrive at a concludion as to what the message was in some cases.

24

(2,068 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Squiggly_P wrote:

I dunno about the terminator guy, but the studios are hiring a lot of young indie-ish directors for huge gigs lately. "Oh, your last film had a $1 million budget and made $5 million in theaters? Have $150 Million and huge comicbook movie / latest installment or reboot of fan-favorite franchise!" Robocop, Godzilla, Spiderman, Guardians Of The Galaxy...

I mean, you gotta keep that budget down somehow, right? And then you can bully the new kid into doing whatever shit you want. They get less control over shit. The producers can demand script changes, and what the fuck is some snot-nosed young kid with one twee romantic comedy under his belt gonna do about it? He's out of his league, and the producers probably let them know that all the fucking time. "Trust me, kid, this big-budget movie stuff is a whole different ball-game than you're used to...  we'll deal with these things, you just shoot the movie and collect your paycheck and get a nice big movie on your resume."

The ones that have more than a few productions under their belt can probably hold their own, and I think guys like James Gunn know what they're getting themselves into when they sign on to something like that and can bring their indie sensibilities to the production and give it some flavor, but I bet a lot of them find themselves more or less clinging on for dear life and trying to follow the script as closely as possible so this big-ass movie doesn't become a fucking trainwreck that destroys their career. At the end of the day, you end up with a movie that's kinda OK. Not fucking terrible but not really that good, either. Just sorta 'blah' and safe and generic. No style. No flavor.

Applebee's doesn't hire 4-star chefs to cook at their restaurants. They hire kids and tell them how to make food and not to deviate from the instructions.


Your argument certainly makes sense, atleast on the surface. These new directors seem to have less of their own voice and vision, and that might just be what the studios desire.

However the results are sometimes also as bland and indistinct as could be expected.

25

(1,649 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I generally love RedLetterMedia so I may be biased, but their latest Genisys walkthrough I feel deserves to be here, brilliant mix of analysis and comedy: