I Just Watched (Films)

[Mantis]

I really enjoyed the designs and general aesthetic of it too. The relatively average plot and writing was forgivable due to the interesting world it was set in.

There's not much actual fantastical fantasy like this anymore, the more gritty angle has been so heavily popularised over the last few years. I thought Mortal Engines made for quite a nice change of pace in that regard.

Also, Hugo Weaving is always awesome, so any movie he's in tends to be more watchable as a result of his presence.

[Raid]

I had to go and look up Hugo Weaving's filmography, and I couldn't find a film that I'd seen and didn't enjoy his performance in (although if I'm honest I can't really remember him in Babe given I've not seen that since I was 10 and he voices a sheepdog).

[Wrathbone]

With the release of the 4K versions of the Hobbit and LOTR films, I’ve decided to watch them all over the course of this week.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If any films deserve being seen in 4K, it’s these. The quality is extraordinary, far better than anything else I’ve seen in 4K, and it’s immediately obvious that great care and effort has gone into making the transfer as good as possible. The audio is also superb, with Atmos support included (I don’t have Atmos, but even with my headphones there was impressive positioning of sounds and voices). Simply put, the upgrade from blu ray is totally worth it.

The film itself remains decent, but I enjoyed it more this time after something occurred to me early on. It’s well established that the book is supposed to have been originally written by Bilbo, and so it is his version of events, complete with his embellishments. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but it stands to reason that the film too is Bilbo’s interpretation and memory of what happened. The film even frames it that way, starting with old Bilbo recalling his adventure.

When you look at it from that perspective, so many of the silly or ridiculous moments (of which there are many) make much more sense. The dwarves singing while throwing his dishes around is not necessarily exactly as it happened, just Bilbo’s exaggerated recollection. The impossibly daft action scenes in Goblintown, even the ludicrous size of the Great Goblin, were never actually witnessed by Bilbo, so what we see is how he imagined it from the way Gandalf and the dwarves described it to him. It doesn’t just make sense as a storytelling device, it makes the whole thing more enjoyable and less grating by remembering that it’s not a literal account of events, but Bilbo’s story.

I don’t think it’s going to salvage the barrel scene tomorrow, though...

One thing that I can’t bring myself to like is the overuse of CGI, particularly with the orcs. They’re objectively worse than the exceptionally good costumes in LOTR, and there’s really no way round it. It was a bad choice. I also don’t like what they do with Radagast, not so much with his purpose in the story but the godawful CGI hedgehog stuff, his rabbit sleigh, the stick insect in his mouth and the bird shit in his hair. It’s too much.

[Achtung Englander]

that entire trilogy is a mess. At best its two films and that is at a stretch.

[Wrathbone]

It really should have been two films. I powered through and watched 2 and 3 tonight, mostly to get 3 over with.

The Desolation of Smaug I’d argue is mostly good up until the barrel scene, then it falls apart and is pretty poor aside from Smaug, who is of course excellent. Almost everything in Laketown should have been consigned to the bin. And you could cookie-cutter remove Legolas, Tauriel and the orcs and it wouldn’t make a jot of difference to the story, perhaps because they weren’t there in the first place. Overall it’s not that bad, though, and better than I recalled.

The Battle of Five Armies is exactly as bad as I recalled. The first hour is fine, though there’s little substance and Alfred is a frequent nuisance and a terrible character. But then the second hour... fuck me, it’s bad. It’s just one long tedious CGI battle. One thing I hadn’t noticed before (probably because I zoned out) was the dwarves’ use of an automatic crossbow machine, reminiscent of early machine guns. This isn’t just stupid, it’s outright obscene in the context. Tolkien famously despised machines of death and the mechanisation of war, having seen it first hand in WW1, and there’s a reason that he blames orcs for inventing them at the start of the Goblintown chapter. To think nobody vetoed such an egregious choice being made in the film is unbelievable.

[Wrathbone]

I don’t have much new to say about Fellowship, as it’s as superb as ever and looks and sounds as good as you’d expect in 4K.

Sam’s monologue at the end of Two Towers felt like it had special significance this year though:

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.

Given everything going on right now, that broke me for a good minute.

[Raid]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Not quite what I was expecting, but very enjoyable nonetheless. The film is a compendium of 6 unrelated stories set on the American frontier, something that I'm not convinced lends itself to a film format, but it's extremely well directed and acted, and frequently beautiful to look at. What follows is probably spoiler material, but honestly I doubt it'll make that much difference as to whether you enjoy the film or not.

Spoiler

Buster Scruggs' story takes up all of ten minutes of the film's runtime, but it provoked one of the biggest belly laughs I've had in a while. The suicide by table bit is so sudden and hilariously over the top that I'd recommend the film on it alone.

I suppose my favourite of the six stories was the gold prospector's. It's an absolutely stunning location, and while the only dialogue comes from the prospector himself, it conveys real, surprising emotion of this aging man and his lonely dream of prosperity.

The hardest hitting moment though was of The Entertainer and his wagon. It was just so unexpected. There's a surprising and impressive amount of depth portrayed considering the only real dialogue was a performance.

[Sly Boots]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Not quite what I was expecting, but very enjoyable nonetheless. The film is a compendium of 6 unrelated stories set on the American frontier, something that I'm not convinced lends itself to a film format, but it's extremely well directed and acted, and frequently beautiful to look at. What follows is probably spoiler material, but honestly I doubt it'll make that much difference as to whether you enjoy the film or not.

Spoiler

Buster Scruggs' story takes up all of ten minutes of the film's runtime, but it provoked one of the biggest belly laughs I've had in a while. The suicide by table bit is so sudden and hilariously over the top that I'd recommend the film on it alone.

I suppose my favourite of the six stories was the gold prospector's. It's an absolutely stunning location, and while the only dialogue comes from the prospector himself, it conveys real, surprising emotion of this aging man and his lonely dream of prosperity.

The hardest hitting moment though was of The Entertainer and his wagon. It was just so unexpected. There's a surprising and impressive amount of depth portrayed considering the only real dialogue was a performance.

Yeah, I enjoyed it as well. James Franco's "first time?" was a highlight as well.

[eny]

Did you recognise who the gold prospector was? I must admit I didn't twig.

[Raid]

No, was I meant to? I looked the actor up afterwards and didn't recognise him.

[Sly Boots]

Tom Waits is a pretty famous musician, and has acted in things here and there I think.

[Raid]

Ah. You may as well be expecting me to recognise the horses.

[Animalmother]

The Prestige
Two magicians who hate each other try and perform the ultimate stage act and engage in escalating acts of cuntery and one-upmanship. It's Christopher Nolan so it's beautiful to look at and bonkers as fuck. It also has David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla, which is nice. The acting overall is great and it keeps you on your toes.

If I hadn't seen it before I definitely would been "Hang on..what..no...what..?". It's one of those films that benefits from a repeat watch. It's a bit plot holey but that didn't spoil the fun.

[Sly Boots]

The Prestige
Two magicians who hate each other try and perform the ultimate stage act and engage in escalating acts of cuntery and one-upmanship. It's Christopher Nolan so it's beautiful to look at and bonkers as fuck. It also has David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla, which is nice. The acting overall is great and it keeps you on your toes.

If I hadn't seen it before I definitely would been "Hang on..what..no...what..?". It's one of those films that benefits from a repeat watch. It's a bit plot holey but that didn't spoil the fun.

Great film, have seen it a few times now and always entertaining viewing.

[Raid]

Continuing my search for a decent Western on any of the streaming services I own (seriously, there just aren't that many on there at the moment), I've ended up with my second Coen Brothers attempt within a week; True Grit (2010), and it's certainly the better of the two (even if I did quite enjoy Scruggs). It's a good old fashioned tale of revenge across a desolate wasteland, really well written and performed. I'll watch Jeff Bridges in just about anything, and he's excellent as ever, but 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld was superb, and it's a little frustrating that despite her being in 90% of the films, she was billed after Josh Brolin who was in it for all of five minutes (and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress despite clearly being a lead).

Is Bridges' "Fill yer hands you son of a bitch!" as good as Wayne's? Nah, but it's a much better scene in the modern version.