Interesting, I didn't think the passing of time was handled very well. Those scenes were long and grueling, but it didn't translate to a lot of time passing. To me it just made a short amount of time feel longer. It felt more like 1 or 2 long years than 12. The way he chose to show the passing of time was with transition shots of willow leaves and cross dissolves between scenes. But I had no clue how much time had passed after each of those transitions. It could've been a year, or a day. There was no dialogue that helped with it either. There were no lines like, "I've been here for 6 years now," or "A few years back Master did blah blah." Text displayed the year in the beginning of the movie but it was never used throughout. The only indicator of passed time for me was that in one scene, his hair had started to gray all of the sudden.

At the end I was thinking, "Well he's free... I guess it's been 12 years then."

Very powerful film, but that part of it bothered me a bit. No sense of time. Also Brad Pitt and his Aldo Raine voice.

12 Years a Slave

Very interesting film. Definitely makes you think twice about slavery.

Jinx

This is amazing. Count me in.

#WhatAreYouDoingHarry
#WhatAreYouDoingMalaria

Punning all three things at once is gonna be tough...

Apocalypse Now - No apocalypse. Not now, not ever.
The Breakfast Club - No breakfast. No club.
Goodfellas - Seemed like pretty bad fellas actually.
Home Alone 2 - No one in this movie was ever home alone.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Should be Scott Pilgrim vs. 7 people.

Well yeah, but some of the things they established in the film have turned out not to be quite consistent with reality. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the physics of it all. Probably not much of a point in it though. If it gets to the point where we're trying to determine their exact speed vs. the length of the tether and all the little details I'd say they did a good enough job with it.

Cool! So the scenery around the astronauts was also changing (i.e. sometimes Earth is behind them, sometimes not)? I guess that also means that Clooney let go at the right time and was lucky not to have fallen toward Earth.

I can't wait to get this on Blu-Ray so I can scrub through that scene. I imagine it's a little hard to get a grip on it because the apparent movement of everything in the scene depends so much on the camera's own position and movement.

I chalked it up to centripetal force, though I don't remember if they were twirling and wrapping around the station at that point. It did feel a little off.

And yes, the 3D was amazing. I normally hate that crap. But this was a spectacle.

I didn't think the White Council scene dragged on at all, it worked for me. But I did think Azog sucked.

As for Taurolas, I'll bring up an idea I read somewhere else. Maybe Pete is setting up this relationship for Legolas so that he can lose it all to the forces of Sauron in the third movie (i.e. she gets killed), and maybe from there explain how he ended up at Rivendell in the Council of Elrond and why he was motivated to contribute to the fight against Sauron. Might be interesting, but also maybe no.

The second DoS trailer seemed more promising than the first for me. I liked the vibe and there was a lot of interesting stuff, but at the same time there were somethings that made me nervous about it; not the least of which being the fact that every frame has to look absolutely perfect, and a little cartoonish at times. What's with all the Legolas CG?

Also I think one of the bigger issues with this story as a whole so far is Thorin's character. He's pretty one-dimensional and I just can't bring myself to feel for him at all, or most of the dwarves for that matter. As a result, at this point in the story I don't really care if they take back Erebor. Plus, like Balin said, they built a pretty nice life for themselves since they lost their kingdom anyway. Thorin wants the mountain back for selfish reasons and I have a hard time rooting for that. Maybe that greed and selfishness will become more eminent and addressed in the next two movies as push starts inching closer to shove, but I felt like AUJ was telling me to root for people I didn't care for, and against people I didn't passionately hate.

After the first movie I'd say the only characters I'm 100% cheering for are Balin, Gandalf and Radagast. Bilbo too, but not as much. It seemed like his character started to come around by the end of the movie.

After watching the trailer I think I can just catch the last 15 minutes and have a good idea of what's going on. Seems like they told us just about everything but the ending. Not that I really care about it anyway...