I watch Gravity yesterday. I have to say I enjoy a lot the movie. I'm not a fan of Bullock and Clooney, but the movie is just breathtaking to watch. Cuaron did a good job at taking the beautiful vistas on earth from the vast silence in space.

^It's a beautiful movie for sure. I wouldn't say I'm a fan of Clooney and Bullock but I do enjoy them sometimes. This was one of those times.

I think what I liked most about that movie was how it was kind of about the origins of life on earth. (in a very philosophical way ofc)

Lol yeah the movie is not that scientifically accurate, and there is a lot of part you will say "that isn't possible", but still a fun movie to watch if you like space stuff.

Wolverine 1 sucked big time, atleast The Wolverine was watchable, the setting did most of the work lol

Just rewatched Cronenbergs The Fly for the first time in a long while. Really good movie. Actually good horror, unlike most of the crap made today :)

Well, i haven't seen the original, but i agree that the 1986 one is a genuinely creepy movie. While it has some pretty nasty effects I feel like it doesn't rely solely on grossing you out to achieve the creepy atmosphere, and it's nice with a horror movie that builds more on the suspense than jump scares. Gonna watch some other movies by Cronenberg now. Videodrome and Scanners coming up :)

That's a little unfair to the movie I think, but I totally understand their temptation to do so. It's really well put together and I loved the cinematography throughout. Was too immersed to worry about the science.

Saw Thor 2 and Catching Fire and was surprised by how much I enjoyed them both. Both better than their prequels (I know not much of a stretch, but still).

Man i'm excited to see the next Hobbit film next week. I know the first gets some flack but I love Middle Earth so much, I can't get enough of it.

Ok so i just got back from Gravity. How does this have 97% on rotten tomatoes? I mean it's not a bad movie but 97% goddamn percent? The 3D was good but i really thought the insane amounts of CG was jarring. The characters just looked super weird most of the time. Talk about uncanny valley. That, and some of the cheesier monologues, aside it was suspenseful and really well made. I can certainly see some of the more scientific objections as well as a few ones that just go against common sense, but it's nothing that really detracts from the movie unless you obsess over a few plot devices that might not be entirely reasonable, but come on...it's a movie, not a documentary. Elves and hobbits are scientifically inaccurate too, but i don't see Degrasse Tyson whining about them :)

I think it's more important to get the story working, tbh. And sure, i did groan at a few points in the movie but overall, i don't think it's a huge problem. That's basically all i'm saying, it was still an enjoyable movie.

What really weirds me out is still the characters. They look like they are 100% CG, but i'm guessing that's not right? It looks so strange :P

So I saw Desolation of Smaug...

The series still suffers from Jackson spreading this thing out so much. There are parts of the movie that are just plain boring. In contrast to the original trilogy too, it really shows how rich things can be when you keep it 1 book to 1 film.

The new elf girl Tauriel(sp) is one of the redeeming liberties taken with the original story. The girl is a bad ass without really shitty dialogue.
Also Legolas is just more likeable. No more bullshit dialogue either and his fights are just cooler. Makes me realize how lame Legolas was in the originals. But it's weird for continuity sake that he's pretty different.
Also the Orcs are all digital now?? Whyyyy? Why do they look so different.

The orc storyline that started in the first is just nonsense too. What a rubbish way to get more action into the movies. I wish that part didn't exist. That part of the story falls flat.


All in all 7 out of 10. However if you read the books and are as passionate as my roommate, it'd probably be more like a 4 out of 10

Just got back from Smaug as well. Can't say i agree with the Tauriel thing. Complete shit character. It's like they went down a checklist of things a "strong" woman should be and felt no need to make her an actual character. Not to mention her entire goddamn side story amounts to absolutely nothing in the actual movie. Would have greatly preferred that they cut her and Legolas out and just focus on the characters that were actually supposed to be there. Other than that i suppose it was ok, but i don't understand how this movie is getting good reviews while An Unexpected Journey got mixed reviews to say the least. I thought this was pretty much worse than the first one in every way. I guess more action = better movie.

Ok action, but also kinda dumb at times and the shoehorned characters just feel misplaced to me.

Ok, just saw 12 years a slave and god, what a bunch of bollocks. 2 hours and 15 minutes of bashing whity. Critics call this movie "brave" and applaud it for being educational and important in it's message. Fuck me. A movie about the slavery being shit for black people? Super brave, that's so goddamn controversial. Talk about taking a risk with that topic!

The movie itself i feel was pretty lacking as well, social observations aside. For what is essentially a character piece the characters were incredibly two-dimensional and lacking, the pacing was beyond slow and it seemed to rely more on the torture to draw on emotion than the characters and their rather tragic fates. Not surprised that this PC-fest got an almost perfect score on rotten tomatoes though, talk about good timing there, Pitt and McQueen.

Slavery sucks, it was terrible and a historical tragedy. It's certainly not something i support in any sense, but this was just rabid monsters torturing black people for two straight hours. Zero nuance to any of the characters. I don't see how this movie was brave in any way. Maybe i get this entirely wrong, but to me it was portraying people of both sides in an almost insultingly two dimensional way. I mean, is there anyone on this planet, that is not also a KKK member, that thinks that the enslavement of african people was a good thing? Did we really need 2 hours of Fassbender being a cartoon villain to drive that point home?

I certainly don't sympathize with slavers even remotely, but i couldn't help feel like this movie was just trying to scream "white privilege!" in my ear (which is incidentally what i meant in my second paragraph of the first post, though i realize that might not have come across particularly well).

Also yeah, i probably don't get the cultural context. I have absolutely no idea what the situation is in the US so far as afro-american and caucasian people are concerned presently. Equality for all, but please spare me the guilt trip.

I contextualized the movie to today. Yes, guilty as charged. I wondered what the message of the movie was, beyond the obvious point of slavery=bad, and the only answer i could come up with was that white people did terrible things back then and i, as a white male, should probably feel bad about that. I don't find that particularly fair or appealing.

If i compare it to something like Schindlers list i think that movie has a by far more interesting setup and nuanced characters, not to mention that it doesn't feel like a big guilt trip in the end.

It has a different focus. Schindlers List isn't about the Germans, it's about Oscar Schindler and his story of saving others.
You should have probably expected what 12 Years a Slave was going to focus on

My point with Schindlers List was mainly that even the nazis weren't portrayed in such a dehumanized fashion as the slave owners were in this movie. Now, as a critic pointed out, that might have been a way for the movie to show that slavery dehumanizes both the slaves and the slave owners, but still. It's not like i was going around thinking afro-americans had a jolly good time in the 1800s before i watched this movie, and that's what is blowing my mind so goddamn hard about this movie and it's reception. Everybody already knows that the slavery in the US, and all over the world for that matter, was fucking horrible in every sense of the word, so how is this movie sorely needed, brave and educational?

Here's a snippet from a review in the Minneapolis star tribune that pretty much encapsulates why the movie and it's reception pissed me off;

"The film is both brutal to watch and stunning to contemplate, powerfully challenging audiences - particularly white audiences - to examine their consciences."

What? Why exactly do i need to examine my conscience? How is anyone alive today connected to the slavery, other than by now dead relatives? Not to mention, no matter what your pigmentation happens to be like, if you live in the western world and happen to be a consumer, you are most likely directly funding horrifying labor conditions for millions as we speak. Slavery is a tragedy whenever and wherever it happens, but i'm not particularly keen on feeling guilty about something i had absolutely nothing to do with. I'm quite content feeling guilty about knowing that severely underpaid Taiwanese wage slaves made my tech stuff. Looking at the reviews it seems to me that shame and guilt is what makes this one popular, and i don't like that one little bit. Am i missing something that everyone else picked up on? Maybe it's because i'm not American.