What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Newer Films)

[Marian Schedenig 8,177]

I mean as thumbs up go, that would be pretty big, right?

Have you heard what that guy told some others over the millennia?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Heck, I even don't know if Scott is still shooting on film or if he went digital like most other directors. I guess Woody Allen, Nolan and Snyder are the last of their kind.

Tarantino.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Tarentino will never go digital. Since they never used digital in the old grind houses where he watched 8 films per day....

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

He should try out the Arri Alexa.

[A24 4,326]

Yes, but Tarantino is almost retired, so ...

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Tarentino will never go digital. Since they never used digital in the old grind houses where he watched 8 films per day....

I was adding to your list.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

There are a handful of major directors still working on film. Wes Anderson and PTA. Spielberg too, aside from Tintin. The Coens have never shot a film digitally, but I'm not sure if they've made the switch for Hail Caesar. They indicated last year that they might.

Also Scorsese's been going back and forth. I'm pretty sure Wolf of Wall Street was mostly 35mm but also with some digital work. He claims there's even an iPhone shot in there

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Have standards dropped so much, filmmakers are tolerating shots made with handheld, consumer grade devices?

[A24 4,326]

Tarentino will never go digital. Since they never used digital in the old grind houses where he watched 8 films per day....

I was adding to your list.

Yes, but Steef is explaining why ... and he has a point. It's like Lenny Kravitz going Pro Tools ... it will never happen.

There are a handful of major directors still working on film. The Coens have never shot a film digitally,

Actually, The Coens were one of the first to shoot digital. Roger Deakins doesn't want to go back to film. He did use film for The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford ... and it looks dreamy. Andrew Dominik is a film shooter.

Alex

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Tarentino will never go digital. Since they never used digital in the old grind houses where he watched 8 films per day....

I was adding to your list.

Yes, but Steef is explaining why ... and he has a point. It's like Lenny Kravitz going Pro Tools ... it will never happen.

Yes, this is what I'm saying. I don't get why you and Steef think otherwise.

[A24 4,326]

But ... we don't think otherwise. Why do you keep thinking that? Is it the language? Different culture?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

It's because you keep explaining why Tarantino will never go digital when I never said anything indicating that he would.

[A24 4,326]

Wow! I give up!

[mrbellamy 6,272]

There are a handful of major directors still working on film. The Coens have never shot a film digitally,

Actually, The Coens were one of the first to shoot digital.

Are you talking about O Brother Where Art Thou? That was the very first film to be digitally graded, but it was shot on film.

[A24 4,326]

Damn, it looks so digital, I thought Deakins already shot it digitally, but apparently Unbroken is the Coen brothers' first digital movie.

[Jay 37,322]

The Coens only wrote the script to Unbroken. Angelina Jolie directed it.

[mrbellamy 6,272]

By the way, I just checked Deakins' forum and he says he's doing Hail Caesar and going back to film: http://rogerdeakins.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3138&p=15830&hilit=caesar&sid=fca3775f66f696dbe1e3d095ccc9c80d#p15830

Re: Alexa 65

by Roger » Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:15 pm

Yes, I am working on 'Hail Caesar' at the moment and we are shooting on film! I doubt that there will be any films shooting on film in another 10 years simply because I doubt there will be the manufacturing or the processing to support it. I hope I am wrong as there should, ideally, always be that choice for those who prefer the 'look' of film.

Re: Alexa 65

by Roger » Sun Oct 05, 2014 5:46 pm

The film we are shooting is set in the Hollywood of 1952 and the Coens felt it only right that we shoot on film. I think they have a point. I am really looking forward to using my old 535B from Otto Nemetz.

[Bespin 8,480]

Last weekend I've watched Red tails by George Lucas.

Not a bad movie, good in fact, but I've seen in it all the defaults that I saw in his Star Wars Prequels.

The constant use of zoom-in and zoom-out in fixed shots... Centring of the shots always done on the part where the Special Effects are (or will appear) instead of characters... The use of various dissolve effect between cuts to clearly expose your lack of storytelling skills... The poor actors direction, well sorry, I mean the absence of it.

Funny

[Jay 37,322]

Oh my, sounds terrible!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Is it bad in a good way then?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I found the acting servicible overall in Red Tails. But the movie's aesthetic is ugly.

[A24 4,326]

Birdman is the favorite at the Golden Globe and the SAG awards!

Smaug that, fellas!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

Birdman is the favorite at the Golden Globe and the SAG awards!

Yay!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I'm Birdman!

[Marian Schedenig 8,177]

The third Hobbit film.

No.

No no no no no.

No.

[KK 3,307]

Hmmm.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Foxcatcher

I liked this one. It's a really subtle thriller, with nuanced performances and direction. Steve Carrell gives an incredibly creepy performance as an obsessed, lonely, egomaniacal and proud patriot. It's hard to look past the make-up and fat suit, but what he delivers is what matters. Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo also do a great job. The movie is very quiet. The score by Rob Simonson is sparse and cold, but slowly warms up and brightens as the film nears its climax. Kudos to him, as I thought it was Mychael Danna the whole time (though he did write one cue). So with little to no music for most of the film, the silence adds a lot of tension to the character interactions. The following muses on the ending, so I'll add the appropriate tags:

The uneasiness of the whole film might have been exclusive to my experience, as the trailers I watched made Carrell out to be this coach who is obsessive to the point of violence. So the entire time I was expecting him to snap and do something violent, but it never happens until the very end, right when I had accepted that it wasn't going to happen so I could relax a bit. Made the scene all the more effective, I thought, but I'm not sure how other viewers will fare.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

I think it's one of the most grim movies I've ever seen. And I'm pretty sure I didn't like it, for that reason, whatever other merits it has.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

My girlfriend called it depressing but I didn't really see it that way. Grim seems a bit harsh... tragic seems more apt. What did you think of the music? I thought it was quite effective and well spotted, regardless of how little of it there is.

[Hurmm 91]

Gone Girl. Entertaining to an extent but past a certain point it seemed to peter out into pointlessness. A bit like The Game in that regard.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

My girlfriend called it depressing but I didn't really see it that way. Grim seems a bit harsh... tragic seems more apt. What did you think of the music? I thought it was quite effective and well spotted, regardless of how little of it there is.

I am a sucker for sparse spotting.

I think the film was actually successful with me, in that obviously it wasn't meant to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. It's just that I usually like even the slightest shred of optimism to hang on to, and this one really didn't give me any.

It's actually the same reaction I've had to Gone Girl, though I enjoyed that initially and only after thinking about it for a week or so did I start to realize that I have no urge to ever see it again.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah I see what you mean.

[Quintus 5,399]

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

The fall of Peter Jackson is complete. I could go into great detail about why this movie is so weak on most levels but I've lost all interest in debating the franchise now so I'll be brief.

The dialogue is truly awful, the expanded subplots tedious as hell, the emotion feigned and the action... well, I was SERIOUSLY fatigued during the final act and wanted to get up and leave, it was that bad. But I still had about another half hour to get through,and it was a drag.

There is no peril in this movie. It's just connected scenes and cg setpieces hammered together and I don't give a shit about any of the characters. I wanted that prick Thorin to die.

The Tolkien book is unrecognisable here and it is now proven that Jacko made a fatal artistic error when he went off piste and built on the adventurous jaunt which Tolkien originally laid down and turned it into a swaggering behemoth of juvenile subplots, casual exposition and movie making excess which makes 1963's Cleopatra look like a Mike Leigh kitchen sink drama.

The score was orchestral wallpaper.

On the positive side, I liked the cool Dol Gulder part and Tauriel is fucking gorgeous and could have made the film much better if only she was always in shot. Bard was good and so was Legolas' dad. Oh and Billy Connolly was amusing. The movie did at least have some light hearted moments and the tone is right overall and not at all the doom of our time sort of thing I was fearful it might be.

Even if things were better overall; these movies are just horrible to look at. Nothing looks natural and every single scene and every single shot has something weird and uncanny in the post processing of the image which is for me impossible to ignore. This is a movie where if Jackson has nowhere in which to place a special effect he makes people's foreheads glow as if lit by a mysterious ethereal light source. Everyone looks manipulated and the world they inhabit is a synthetic one. Right off the bat the immersion is comprised and it never recovers

2/5

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Great, another Tolkien thread.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

When did Jacko forget how to filmmake?

[KK 3,307]

When he got the dragon sickness!

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

When he got the dragon sickness!

This guy gets it! The films are big metaphors! It's brilliant!

[crocodile 7,989]

It's so meta.

Karol

[Bilbo 3,709]

Paddington. Loved it.

[Wojo 2,453]

I spent the last three days watching Labyrinth wishing that Jim Henson had been trusted to make a Hobbit movie.

[A24 4,326]

When did Jacko forget how to filmmake?

I wonder if it is Jackson who has changed.

Alex

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

When did Jacko forget how to filmmake?

I wonder if it is Jackson who has changed.

Alex

Who else, his wife?

[A24 4,326]

I dunno, is his wife involved?

[KK 3,307]

His wife has helped write most of his films.

[A24 4,326]

Then it's possible ... but that's not what I'm getting at, of course.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What are you getting at?

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

My guess would be: the films were always immature crap, but now we've grown and can recognize it.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I'm asking Alex, not you!

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Yeah but that's a likely Alex response!

[Naïve Old Fart 9,507]

It's so meta.

Karol

Shouldn't that be "weta"?

Paddington. Loved it.

Agreed. It's great.

When did Jacko forget how to filmmake?

I wonder if it is Jackson who has changed.

Alex

Alex is right. I used to love "E.T.", but right now I think it's pure meh, and it's slipped right off of my radar. Even the score no longer moves me, but hey-ho, I'm sure I'll do another one-eighty, at some point.

As for "BOT5A"...it was pretty terrible...