Cmasterclay

Even the praised action scenes in the Hobbit kind of suck. The boat chase, the dwarfs running from Smaug, the Goblin King scene in the first....all of them felt like something out of fucking Donkey Kong. Jackson directed every action scene like a platform video game. The first Smaug introduction was great, though. And so was him destroying the Lake Town, even if it was poorly edited into the context of the larger story. And obviously the Gollum scene killed. But otherwise......yeesh. I think there's about an hour or two of good stuff in a seven hour trilogy.

I was a tiny bit disappointed in Arrival. It is great for awhile, but then it kind of gets messy. I think it's the weakest of his major releases. *ducks*

Jackson's Kong was a little long and could have used another run (or five) through the editor's room, but honestly I'd certainly say the same for ROTK just as much and even for Fellowship a bit. All of those movies kicked fucking ass in spite of it, dude was a genius at the time. The real question is what happened to the dude? Lovely Bones was AWFUL. And the Hobbit? Hot take incoming, but they're as bad as the Star Wars prequels. I think they're a total mess with a few pretty decent parts minced in. What happened to Jackson's directorial skills? His 90s movies were awesome, too. He just directed Kong and then fell off a fucking cliff in the span of just a few years. It's inexplicable. I'll chalk it up to ego and too much control once he got big.

I didn't comment when it first dropped cuz I was busy with the campaign, but my god I haven't had my anticipation for a movie drop so quickly in years compared to how it just popped for this after the second trailer. The first trailer was my favorite blockbuster trailer of the year - dark, terrifying, and lucid. It was a scary Vietnam movie mixed with a King Kong flick. Apocalypse Now meets Kong. But this new trailer? Trash. No sense of scope or style and a bunch of tossed off jokes. It could still be a fun action movie, but damn, I was hoping for something more. For what it's worth, I also LOVED Godzilla and thought it could have been a blockbuster classic with a better cast. ATJ and Olsen ruined it but I loved the buildup and the style and the mood. I also think the first Rogue One trailer was better than the cheesy ass "Save the dream!!" trailers that people are going nuts over, so maybe I'm just clued into that particular style Edwards went for on Godzilla and it looked like, at first, they were going for here.

Chris Pine was the best actor in Hell or High Water. Also, Chronic and American Honey over Hell or High Water, The Witch, and Loving?

Fences probably isn't good enough to win Best Picture, but the acting branch is certainly powerful enough to carry it to a nom pretty easily. I think Patriot's Day and Hidden Figures both might sneak in. I also think Sully's chances are being seriously underrated.

Apparently The Founder is actually pretty good and Keaton is great in it. Oscar likes the guy enough he might sneak into the 4/5 spot, if Weinstein doesn't botch the release (hint: they are). I'd say Denzel, Affleck, and Gosling seem pretty locked and loaded, and Hanks seems safe at this point too. I'd say Edgerton, Garfield, and Keaton are battling for that last spot. Will need to see what gets traction once award season starts. I'd LOVE for Pine to sneak in- he's better than Bridges (who I think wins Supporting Actor, actually) and an absolute revelation.

.................... Also, this is actually getting quite a few very good reviews, but also lots of mediocre ones. It seems alot like the Walk's reception - middling reviews punctuated by a few people that loved it.

I went to every Harry Potter midnight opening for both the books and the movies and consider the franchise a defining piece of media for my whole generation, and even I skipped out on midnights and am holding off till the weekend. There's just no real reason to rush out and see this one. Nothing about the trailers or the reviews is particularly compelling at all. If I wasn't a fan, I'd probably chalk this up as just another skippable fantasy franchise. But I will see it, because I do love me some Wizarding World. Rogue One is coming immediately off a movie that almost a billion dollars here alone. It has prominent characters and features from the original trilogy. Everyone knows the Death Star and Vader, they're as famous as any element of the franchise. It's a story people understand and want to see on the screen. It isn't just "another movie with wizards set well before Harry Potter with no real connection." It's a direct prequel to a New Hope with the main villain of the franchise. It's a much less thin needle to thread than Fantastic Beasts. I have that right around 450.

OUCH

Man, the first two/thirds of this movie are pure freaking magic. Best of the year. The third act......meh. Don't hate the concepts, have problems with the lazy and rushed execution.

Mel sabotaged the projector when he found out that a Jew was in the audience.

Gone Girl had better reviews and was a more "high brow" movie given the Fincher direction and the Oscar buzz. GOTT probably will have worse legs generally and skew younger. Plus, midights are bigger than ever now.

Here's the link. Woop woop http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ben-afflecks-live-by-night-935085?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Fnews+(The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories)

Damn I crushed the preseason questions. Too bad I couldn't keep up this summer could have been my best year ever.

Just need to hear about this and Live By Night making it into this year and it suddenly gets alot more exciting. And if Live By Night DOESN'T get moved into this year from a January release, that means it probably ain't much to get thrilled over.

Huh, I'm actually more compelled by this year's (potential) lineup than last year's, at least at this point. We'll see how it all turns out.

Hell Or High Water is a slightly smaller version of the Gift -a late summer indie hit that stunned everyone by being so good. Otherwise, vom. My favorite studio movies (Popstar, Ghostbusters, Star Trek Beyond) either outright failed or disappointed. Civil War and Central Intelligence were the only major films that I both liked and came close to/exceeded expectations, and even they had relatively blah and predictable runs. But I'm with Spags here, fall and winter look amazing.

Driving 35 minutes after work tonight to go see Southside With You. I'm actually really excited - it looks terrific. Hope it makes some ok cash.

Very sad that everyone in D.C. is hanging out without me while I'm in a tiny town in Ohio with no friends, but this movie was fucking awesome and I loved every second, if that counts for anything.

Like but don't love that PTA for Hell or High Water. That's what I really cared about this weekend.

It makes sense, in a way. Studios now are trying to pump the prime summer months full of safe, cookie cutter "stop the orb" CGI blockbusters that they can "brand". So now the good stuff is getting more backloaded to August and even September. I'm more excited for September than I was for any single summer month.

So from a few people in the (seeming) know that I follow, this is apparently fucking spectacular. And it looks it, too. I love this cast.

Vin Diesel always seemed like this affable, goofy, nice dumb guy. He seemed really fun and charming in a silly way. Shame to hear he's apparently a diva and a dick. Guess I shouldn't be stunned that a guy who named himself "Vin Diesel" is an assshole, huh?

Someone called this "Spotify Squad", and I couldn't agree more. This is a soundtrack in desperate search of a movie to paper around it. Clumsy editing, terribly written characters, muddy action, the worst villain in modern film history, a terrible sense of scope or scale, and confused tone. I'm with Gopher - the character intros were sloppy, but they were fun and stylish. I enjoyed the three different beginnings all well. But everything after that - yeeeeeeeeesh. Characters get zero development, relationships develop for literally no reason, the movie loses track of any tone or plot, and it stumbles its way past the finish like a child playing with action figures. Robbie and Davis do their thing, but in this movie, they only get to do "their thing," and absolutely nothing else. Will Smith was great - the only character with something resembling an arc, and Will Smith still has enough charisma to nearly lift an entire damn movie himself. But this movie is just a fucking mess. A compelling mess, but a mess, like BvS. Two of the most poorly made blockbuster films of modern times. I put them in the same category as Jupiter Ascending. Absolutely inexplicable disasters that you can't take your eyes off of, meaning I'd rather watch them than just a boring Jurassic World type mediocre movie, for what it's worth.