CAYOM Festival - Year 7 - Three-Month Funeral triumphs

[Hiccup]

Sounds meh..I am going to have low expectation going into it. 

[Alpha]

Sounds meh..I am going to have low expectation going into it.

Want me to PM to u?

[Blankments]

Interested to read Tom Sawyer now. Sounds like I'd hate it, but want it to do well for a Huckleberry Finn sequel (which is an infinitely better novel, btw )

[riczhang]

The only thing I could imagine when reading it was the seeing the inside of Joel Courtney's nostrils.  But, I think that if it gets trimmed, and maybe with a director change this has good potential. 

Edited March 19, 2013 by riczhang

[Alpha]

Interested to read Tom Sawyer now. Sounds like I'd hate it, but want it to do well for a Huckleberry Finn sequel (which is an infinitely better novel, btw )

Thankfully I have Huck Finn rights but I guess everybody hates me now.I messed on the technical spots, should've made the runtime longer.

[Ezen Baklattan]

Interested to read Tom Sawyer now. Sounds like I'd hate it, but want it to do well for a Huckleberry Finn sequel (which is an infinitely better novel, btw )

:worthy:

[riczhang]

Thankfully I have Huck Finn rights but I guess everybody hates me now.I messed on the technical spots, should've made the runtime longer.

 

My advice is not to make the runtime longer. I would personally cut the runtime down, and cut the plot down. I'd cut the runtime to about 1h 50mins, because it's a family film and kids can't sit for all that long, no matter how much they like the film. But, cutting back the story is most important, a book can afford to be 1000 pages (or more) long, but a movie can't afford to include that much plot. Set it up, and then especially when you get to the graveyard and afterwards just cut it down to the main plot, with maybe one or two side plots, and that'd be it. The love jealousy is definitely the biggest thing I'd cut, cut it all out and just get to Tom and Becky. I know it destroys some of the original book plot, but I think it's a needed cut. 

Edited March 20, 2013 by riczhang

[Ezen Baklattan]

The only two remaining major films I've got for Y7 are Extrasensory (nearly complete, but I'm just working out some final details) and The Rich & Famous. (which should hopefully do at least as well as Best Friends did and get an Actress nod for Palthrow)

[riczhang]

I'm pretty much done my Year 7 major films. I'm still working on my Polanski, but I've got it all figured out now so it shouldn't take too long. 

[Blankments]

I'm done with my OCs, but I've got big films in Justice League, Chuck Norris and Liam Neeson vs. Santa Claus, Ultimate Badass, LucIId, and Teen Titans to finish....

[Ezen Baklattan]

Average Ratings So Far...

 

Innocense - 8.4/10

Spark: Ignition - 8/10

The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - 5.6/10

[Alpha]

I'm done with half of my films, and I need to finish half more.

[Blankments]

Bring on Curious!

[riczhang]

We have been told that the screening of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time has just begun. In attendance however are only 2 of our 3 panel members, as one of them unfortunately had to miss it because of a prior engagement at the Weinstein Co. party. 

 

I'll post after dinner

Edited March 20, 2013 by riczhang

[Alpha]

The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - 5.6/10

 

[4815162342]

Average Ratings So Far...

 

Innocense - 8.4/10

Spark: Ignition - 8/10

The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - 5.6/10

 

How are you assigning points, because I have my own particular letter grade to point system.

[Ezen Baklattan]

I used Riczhang and Alfred's grades as scores out of 10, and I used Metacritic's grade conversion techniques to convert your grade to a score of 10.

[riczhang]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

A Riczhang Review

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the second strange movie of the day following Innocense, but in a completely different way. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is just plain odd, but not in a bad way. There’s a strange sort of appeal to it that gets you past some of the problems with the films.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is intriguing. It tells a very unique story, and it’s told decently. It’s fun, a little bit emotional, and overall a very good adventure. It’s got a vibrancy and energy to it that, although it could be quite a boring film, makes it something that one would like to watch. Paddy Considine is perhaps the highlight of the film, and has proven that he really is talented in all films from directing to acting to music. He plays the role with the right amount of patronising concern that the character really possesses, but also the right amount of off-putting qualities to give us a look into Chris’s perspective and view on the police man.

However, the movie isn’t without fault. The main problem with it is that there is one particularly large logical fallacy. The movie is set up so that it seems like one of the characters can be in two places at once, or maybe it was just an error in the logic and reasoning of Chris, but that seems unlikely given how the movie characterises Chris. Chris wouldn’t have come to that sort of conclusion. Craig Roberts plays an intriguing Chris, and does the character justice if we only go by acting technique; however, Craig at the age of 22 is way too old to play the 15-year-old Chris and so the effect is quite jarring. The way some of his thoughts in animation is a nice touch, it’s kinda cute, but it’s superfluous. It also serves to make Chris look even younger than the 15 years of age he is, which makes the perceived age disparity between how old he looks on screen and how old we think he is even larger and more unsettling.

The biggest asset to the film is probably the director Sam Mendes whose expert work manages to pull the entire film together, especially the last bit which borders on melodrama. Sam manages to take what could easily have been overly sentimental and emotionally manipulative and tone it down so that the film ends on an emotionally satisfying but not overly emotional note. That’s probably why the entire film works really; all the plot points and etc. had the makings of another Extremely Long and Incredibly Condescending, or in other words a hot mess, but it didn’t as Sam managed to rein everything in.

7/10

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

A Numbers Review

 

Curiously Engaging

 

 

Sam Mendes, after a naval war thriller and a melodramatic musical, shifts gears to a quiet, quirky quasi-mystery set in the London suburbs. Curious Incident is a film about a high-functioning autistic kid who stumbles across an apparently murdered canine in a neighbor's yard and how his curious attempts to figure out who killed the dog drag him into a whirlwind adventure that cuts to the heart of his own family's shadowy secrets. I know what you're thinking, this film could end up like Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Thankfully it doesn't. It's flawed, but it's engaging and subtle, the opposite of that Daldry mess.

 

While too old for the role, Craig Roberts does provide a quiet, though somewhat manic and reclusive energy to Chris, whose quest for answers gets sidetracked by his fluid interests in other events, his fearful emotions, and familial obstacles. Anchoring the film is Tim Roth as Chris' father, a complicated man hiding secrets and lies as a way to protect his somewhat fragile son but as a result bubbling up his inner frustrations and anger. Roth is definitely the best part of the film and is the first of multiple good roles audiences will see him play this year. The rest of the ensemble cast weaves in and out effectively, though no one else quite makes the same impression.

 

Now the film's flaws mainly come in two places. First, the film kinda insinuates that Chris is able to make deductions and see patterns because of his autism, but it's not executed in the best way so it seems that Chris is able to leapfrog over plot barriers by sheer instantaneous realization. The other error is that the film runs on a bit too long. The third act, following Chris' discovery of the dog murderer, runs overlong and the pacing isn't the best, which results in the conclusion dragging a bit. But the first two acts are quirky, smart, and engaging and the final moments of the film right the ship for a proper send-off.

 

B+

[4815162342]

I used Riczhang and Alfred's grades as scores out of 10, and I used Metacritic's grade conversion techniques to convert your grade to a score of 10.

 

I don't know how Metacritic does it but my system is:

 

A+ = 10

A = 9.7

A- = 9.0

B+ = 8.3

B = 7.4

B- = 6.6

C+ = 5.8

C = 5.0

C- = 4.2

D+ = 3.3

D = 2.5

D- = 1.6

F = 0

[riczhang]

I was just about to post an explanation for my scoring numbers. I had to search the forum to find a copy of it, lol. 

 

Anyways here goes:

 

10*: Extraordinary beyond 10/10 movie. Given to maybe 10 movies. 
10: Perfect, faultless (or faults so small that you don't even realise until multiple viewings later) Never been given to more than 6 movies a year, and some years like 2010 they were given to none
9+: Excellent 
8+: Great
7+: Good
6+: Above Average
5+: Meh
4+: Below Average but watchable
3+: Bad, but stomach-able with copious amounts of booze 
2+: Failure, horrible, unwatch-able
1+: Someone take away the director's camera
0+: Unredeemably bad. The Director should commit suicide.