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Issues with GMAIL - UPDATED ×
Issues with GMAIL - UPDATED

Chen G.

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Everything posted by Chen G.

  1. Chen G.
    What's so inimitable in Richard Harris in that role? That's not a slate against the actor. Its not even much of a slate against the director - its just that there isn't an awful lot of Dumbeldore in the first two films, so there isn't anything for Harris to show his prowess with. Chen, who's presently watching Richard Harris in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.
  2. Chen G.
    I don't care for Richard Harris in that role. To be fair to him, there's very little of Dumberldore in the first two entries, so its not like he had anything to show his prowess with. I do think Gambon is a bit too hysterical under Newell's direction, but otherwise I think he's fantastic in that role. The quality of a performance is dependent on the director as much as the actor. So a great actor (Richard Harris) with a director who's very bad at pulling a good performance out of his actors (Chris Columbus) and/or with insufficient time to dial-in the performance accordingly (not enough rehearsals and/or takes), still amounts to a very "meh" performance.
  3. Chen G.
    Wait, Philosopher’s Stone had a focus?!😉
  4. Chen G.
    I didn't like it?! Which is to say nothing of Lawrence of Arabia.
  5. Chen G.
    I really need to rewatch that film to pass judgment but I recall liking it. a lot.
  6. Chen G.
    Indeed.
  7. Chen G.
    Given that he was brought in at a late phase, its not unreasonable for Abrams to look into his own screenwriting efforts from The Force Awakens. Its not an unknown practice for serialized films, and its not a bad idea, either.
  8. Chen G.
    Jakku at least looked completely different to how Tatooine looked in Star Wars: the former was much more sandy, the latter more rocky. But this? I dunno.
  9. Chen G.
    I don't think the characters are any less compelling under Yates' helm. The narrative is less "warm" but that's because of the nature of the story: it starts warm, but it gradually stops being that and becomes something more confronting and dark. That's good storytelling because there's a sense of escalation there. That a story is a downer doesn't mean its a lesser story. Case in point: Not obvious in the slightest. He's a good filmmaker, and he has come through on at least two of the very best Harry Potter films. Are there better filmmakers, like Cuáron? Sure. But let's not forget that Cuáron's masterpiece is the dark-as-hell Children of Men, with a color palette that's just a notch above black-and-white. So if tone and color palette are your gripes with Yates, than...
  10. Chen G.
    That's one of the funniest things about contemporary Hollywood: when they need someone who sounds and/or looks even remotely Middle Eastern, they cast an Israeli actor or actress. In the case of an actor, he's requested to not shave for a few weeks, and in the case of both they're asked: "Do the thickest Morrocan Jewish accent you can manage, okay?"
  11. Chen G.
    Yeah, but he was being informed by Graeco-Roman history and mythology as he was crafting his own. Numenore, Arnor and Gondor are very much based on the Roman Empire and, fittingly, there's a strong Greek influence on the Elves. Most of the stories Tolkien drew on predated the Middle Ages. At any rate I'm just not sure what's the point here. Regardless of the setting of the narrative, the last thing anyone needs or wants is a Middle Earth score with a strictly "medieval" instrumentation. Y'know, crumhorns, hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes and shawms. Just thinking about it makes me shiver.
  12. Chen G.
    Spielberg rarely writes his films, though. What matters in terms of fidelty (or percieved fidelty) to the source material is the screenwriter's work, although of course the development of the script is dependant on the interaction with the director and producers, too.
  13. Chen G.
    That's fair. I'm a historian in profession, so I'm more likely to notice that sort of thing. Tolkien was kind of an odd personality in the academic landscape in that he was a linguist, but kind of crossed with a historian. Admittedly they're related fields, but still. His knowledge in and love of ancient history permeates his literary work. In reading it, its readily appearant that a professor wrote it.
  14. Chen G.
    I think the muted color around the students' daily lives goes to show their ephemeral nature: its not going to last. The flashbacks were used appropriately: Anything more would have been overkill, both narrativelly and pacing-wise. There's something to be said for the film managing to maintain an air of danger without a central antagonist: reminds me of Hitchcock or vintage M. Night Shaymalan. Over-reliance on Voldemort would have tarnished that.
  15. Chen G.
    But that's very much in the film: it is a bubble, but one that the audience and the characters know can burst at any time. That doesn't mean that life doesn't go on, hence the interjections of levity. We've had the previous films to be cheery. Now is the time to be more meat-on-the-bone.
  16. Chen G.
    I think the movie conveys the "calm before the storm" atmosphere well, it just replaces the "carefree" nature of staying at Hogwarts with more a more foreboding undercurrent: the place is just short of being besieged with the students inside, so the darkness is more than warranted. This may not abide by the atmosphere laid in the book (which I haven't read), per se, but given what's to come in the next film, I think its an appropriate piece of build-up and therefore a solid storytelling choice. Outside of that, there's very little in the way of immediate danger or tragic eventualities in the bulk of the film's running time (and its a movie that takes its time) and there isn't even really a central, present antagonist. So muting the color palette and peppering the film with shadows and atmospherics is one of the go-to storytelling elements. You can of course go too far with the execution and I do think that in some scenes Yates has, but overall I think its by far more effective than not.
  17. Chen G.
    That's a good thing: this movie ends in tragedy, and its on the verge of even more tragic outcomes. That's perhaps the most egregious that this film gets in terms of destaturation, yes. But most of the time the film looks okay. Could it have looked better with a more percieved naturalistic color palette in most scenes? yes. But its hardly as bad as its made up to be. The Goblet of Fire is much worse, and even that still looks palatable in most scenes, too. Textbook halo effect. The acting in the film I've found to be mostly strong.
  18. Chen G.
    What's wrong with that one?
  19. Chen G.
    By far the most unappetizing in terms of color palette is The Goblet of Fire.
  20. Chen G.
    But visuals are more than just color palette...
  21. Chen G.
    I do think he occasionally goes overboard with the digital grading as far as making the frame darker goes. But I think the dark turn is appropriate, whether its like the novels or not-quite. What matters is that, like the books, there's escalation: it starts on a lighter, more jouvenile note, and develops into something dark and confronting. To say that its lifeless is a gross exaggeration: like I said, the juxtaposition with humor in The Half Blood Prince is (mostly) excellent, and there's a lot of heart to, say, The Order of the Phoenix - which I would say is a downright excellent film.
  22. Chen G.
    I think The Half Blood Prince is "a David Yates film", stylistically. Its just that his stylistic tendencies are more subtle. Unlike common thinking, directors tend to get more stylistically subtle as time goes on, rather than the other way around. All of these have more style than any of the two Chris Columbus entries, in which the camerawork rarely exceeded standard coverage.
  23. Chen G.
    I think getting too involved with the world in which a film is set, is the surest way to lose sight of the narrative. We've had enough (if not too much, at times) of a taste of the world itself with the first few films. With these later ones I just wanted the central conflict and the characters' stories to be told well and - apart from the underwhelming conclusion in Deathly Hallows part 2 - I would say they were. And as these character stories progress and the conflict deepens, it makes sense that they would go down darker avenues, and so the treatment that the later films got was very much on-point. That's not to say they're without fault - there are some unappetizing digital grading choices in The Half-Blood Prince, Deathly Hallows part 2 and especially The Goblet of Fire; some of the juxtaposition of levity and gravity is pushing the boundaries a bit; some of the romantic attachments don't carry much weight (more by the design of JK Rowling than anything else), and some character stories feel unfulfilled, etc. But overall, I'd say they're more effective than not, and certainly more effective than anything Chris Columbus got.
  24. Chen G.
    In general Shore has a unique way of handling the ensemble, creating a sound that's distinctly his, distinctly Middle Earth and distinctly not anything else. Look at the hardanger fiddle for Rohan: it doesn't at all sound like what it does in a Norwegian folk piece. Looking at the late ninties and early 2000s its clear to me that Shore very wisely wanted to stay away from two things, at least initially untill his scores gained traction. Those things being: 1) The "Golden Age Hollywood" sound, and 2) The stereotypical ethnic instrumental choices that were popular at the time to suggest geography (duduk to suggest the east, erhu to suggest the far-east, bagpipes to suggest the north) or style (pan pipes to give a suggestion of nativity, overtone singing for a sense of mystique, etc...). Even when he went for those colors, he intentionally chose different instruments: nay and rhaita in lieu of the duduk, hardanger instead of pipes, etc...
  25. Chen G.
    Defensive? not at all. Just an interesting topic, is all. But I do always find it odd that people look at Tolkien's creation as largely medieval. If anything, he was thinking about antiquity more than anything. As for the forces involved - I think Shore's treatment is apt, being that Tolkien certainly had a taste for ostentation: this is the man that made Orthanc 500 feet tall. If anything, I sometimes feel like Shore could have gone full "symphony of a thousand" mode with the Mount Doom stuff.
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