Pseudonym
Ivan Alias
I still get violent when I think about sitting through The Village. Six years later and I am still pissed off.
On a side note, did he make a cameo in this film too?
[Trailer] Last Airbender: what's the appeal?
- Thread starter roguerouge
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I still get violent when I think about sitting through The Village. Six years later and I am still pissed off.
On a side note, did he make a cameo in this film too?
Taking the kids to see it tomorrow. As I stated earlier, I don't have high expectations for the movie but I'll be much more interested to see it for myself or hear from gamers that have actually seen the movie.
I find movie reviewers in general, and Ebert as a prime example, as a collective bunch of pretentious a-holes. Just b/c they're right once in a great while doesn't change that fact.
Here's hoping they're wrong, even if it's a dim hope...
I find movie reviewers in general, and Ebert as a prime example, as a collective bunch of pretentious a-holes. Just b/c they're right once in a great while doesn't change that fact.
Here's hoping they're wrong, even if it's a dim hope...
I can beat that! I took a date to see 'Howard the Duck'. She still wound up marrying me even after that debacle, but to this day she still uses it against me - not that I blame her.
Krug
Newshound
Uh what does "right" mean? They're reviewers. It's an opinion. Not sure why people get worked up over movie reviews.
Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
People don't understand the purpose of reading critics. Reviews are there to ASSIST you in making the decision of what movie to see and why, not to make the decision FOR you. Criticism is opinion, but its usefulness is not just in a 1-to-5 star rating or a thumbs up/down, but in the discussion of WHY they gave it that rating.
I see critics often give movies middling star ratings but the review itself takes great pains to point out things the reviewer did NOT like. If you look only at the middling rating you can mistakenly assume, "I guess it's 'okay', neither great or terrible so it's worth the time and money." If you read only the written criticism you might mistakenly assume that since the reviewer has only critical comments on the movie that the reviewer is actually trying to tell you it isn't worth your time or money when that may not be accurate. I can DESPISE certain things about movies that I really, REALLY enjoy. I can find a movie as a whole to be entertaining, while freely acknowledging that objectively it's AWFUL (people usually call this a guilty pleasure).
One of the dangers of being a long-term, professional film critic is that you see endless amounts of utter drek. Heck, you see endless amounts of movies in general - and not because you are necessarily freely and genuinely interested in the style, actors, director, subject, or anything else about the movie. You see movies because you are PAID to see movies whether you're in the demographic for the movie or not and then tell people what you think. After a while critics can get bored or numbed by anything that doesn't shock them or do something outrageous and unpredicted. Thus, movies that aren't aiming for high-art in the first place can be easily dismissed and unfavorably (and unfairly) criticized making the critic seem like more of a pretentious snob than he actually is.
It's possible for you to become familiar with what certain critics like, but it's IMPOSSIBLE for them to ever have the first clue what YOU like. People have to draw out the infomation from reviews that they want and it's quite possible that one review simply isn't going to tell you everything you need. If you're REALLY going to use reviews for more than just an unexplained thumbs up/down then you need mutiple reviews. And you have the luxury of thinkng about a film for hours, days, even weeks before finally forming your ultimate opinion about it. A critic has to make much snappier judgements, write a review, and then move on to the next movie. And nobody's perfekt.
I spent several years writing reviews of every movie I saw for my personal website. I don't think too many people outside of my own family read them but that's not why I stopped writing them. I stopped because simply putting down a proper critical opinion in words got to seem like a chore. I also started to get less enjoyment out of going to movies because I KNEW from past experience that most of the movies I'd go to see would wind up being so unremarkable or so frequently fail to reach their obvious potential. But I'd only really see that when trying to dissect those movies with a dedicatedly critical eye rather than just enjoying them for what they were.
1. If you seek a job as a movie reviewer, seeing a lot of movies is A) something you presumably enjoy, and B) your job. I don't care how many movies they have to watch. It's their job.
2. To single out Ebert, specifically, his "critical analysis" is often a whim. It's like watching politicians. Pull a review/speech from 2 years ago and what they were praising then, they're bemoaning now, and vice versa.
3. If they seem like a pretentious snob, it's because (at least to me) they are pretentious snobs. I also know a duck when I see one, I know what food tastes good when I eat it, and I know when I've stepped in something squishy that smells bad. Sure, it's all subjective, but when 96% of the time their opinions are diametrically opposed to mine AND they have little or no consistency in the expression of their opinions, I can safely say that I find them to be useless.
The whole movie review "industry" is like that. Look at the Academy Awards. People win b/c it's "their turn", they win b/c of their gender, their race, or the political statements made as often as someone wins for a spectacular script or performance.
2. To single out Ebert, specifically, his "critical analysis" is often a whim. It's like watching politicians. Pull a review/speech from 2 years ago and what they were praising then, they're bemoaning now, and vice versa.
3. If they seem like a pretentious snob, it's because (at least to me) they are pretentious snobs. I also know a duck when I see one, I know what food tastes good when I eat it, and I know when I've stepped in something squishy that smells bad. Sure, it's all subjective, but when 96% of the time their opinions are diametrically opposed to mine AND they have little or no consistency in the expression of their opinions, I can safely say that I find them to be useless.
The whole movie review "industry" is like that. Look at the Academy Awards. People win b/c it's "their turn", they win b/c of their gender, their race, or the political statements made as often as someone wins for a spectacular script or performance.
Krug
Newshound
Uh dude just don't read the reviews. I read reviews because they can give another perspective of the movie; it's like having a dialogue with a friend about storytelling, films and so on. Ebert can do that. A lot of the online film critics can't. They can't even tell you what the problem with a certain movie is.
I think sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have amplified the effect of film reviewers as a whole, and even Ebert's influence. Well he did finally apologise for saying video games could not be art, at least.
Darth Shoju
First Post
I saw it last night. It wasn't good.
First off, I couldn't find a theatre playing it in 2D, and there isn't a single 3D effect in the damn movie. This felt like extortion to me. The 3D effect only served to screw up the focus of several scenes.
The dialogue is awful. It exists only to relate exposition, and often without any context. There is almost no character-building done in this movie. Writing 101 says that when you start a line of dialogue with "As you know...", you are setting up for a cumbersome info dump, and this should be avoided. This happens several times in this flick.
The plot is a haphazard mess. Clumsy voice-overs are used to bridge scenes that make little sense on their own, or to fill in gaps right in the middle of a scene. Flashbacks are used in the wrong places, and are usually silent. The movie is a prime example of telling instead of showing. The naration could easily be covered with visual clues and character-building dialogue, or proper flashbacks.
The editing is incomprehensible. Some scenes have no setup at all, and are totally confusing (this coming from an avid fan of the cartoon, who knows the story. I can only imagine the confusion of newcomers).
The acting is wooden, but is far from the worst part of the movie. I actually think it could have been serviceable in the hands of a better director.
As far as the ethnicities are concerned, the Southern Water Tribe seemed to be entirely inuit, except for Sokka, Katara, and their grandma. The Northern Water Tribe was all caucasian. The Earth Kingdom was thoroughly Chinese, while the Fire Nation was Indian. The Air Nomads were a mixture.
Appa and Momo are barely in the movie. Fire Lord Ozai is basically a talking piece of scenery.
Visually the movie was quite good. The sets, locations, special effects, costumes -- all were well done and pretty accurate to the cartoon. The bending used the same martial arts as the cartoon. The fight scenes were solid, though kind of sparse.
Ultimately, it was like they gave a 280 million dollar budget and a solid special effects team to a high-school A/V club and drama class and told them to make a movie. Since M. Night Shyamalan took credit as writer, producer, and director, I'd say it all falls squarely on his shoulders.
I should also add that the theatre I went to was sold out, and the audience seemed to enjoy the movie (except for the two kids behind me), and even laughed at the weak attempts at humour. Now this could be because it's Canada Day and 31 celcius here (38 with the humidex), so people have the day off but are reluctant to go outside for the celebrations. It's also the first night for the movie. Frankly, I'm not really sure how it's going to do financially.
Then again, I'm not sure how I want it to do. As bad as the movie was, there were moments where I was reminded how good the cartoon was, and how amazing this movie could have been. I'd say my ideal scenario at this point would be for it to do well enough that they want to make the next two, but Shyamalan can't do them due to scheduling problems or something, and they end up giving them to a better director.
First off, I couldn't find a theatre playing it in 2D, and there isn't a single 3D effect in the damn movie. This felt like extortion to me. The 3D effect only served to screw up the focus of several scenes.
The dialogue is awful. It exists only to relate exposition, and often without any context. There is almost no character-building done in this movie. Writing 101 says that when you start a line of dialogue with "As you know...", you are setting up for a cumbersome info dump, and this should be avoided. This happens several times in this flick.
The plot is a haphazard mess. Clumsy voice-overs are used to bridge scenes that make little sense on their own, or to fill in gaps right in the middle of a scene. Flashbacks are used in the wrong places, and are usually silent. The movie is a prime example of telling instead of showing. The naration could easily be covered with visual clues and character-building dialogue, or proper flashbacks.
The editing is incomprehensible. Some scenes have no setup at all, and are totally confusing (this coming from an avid fan of the cartoon, who knows the story. I can only imagine the confusion of newcomers).
The acting is wooden, but is far from the worst part of the movie. I actually think it could have been serviceable in the hands of a better director.
As far as the ethnicities are concerned, the Southern Water Tribe seemed to be entirely inuit, except for Sokka, Katara, and their grandma. The Northern Water Tribe was all caucasian. The Earth Kingdom was thoroughly Chinese, while the Fire Nation was Indian. The Air Nomads were a mixture.
Appa and Momo are barely in the movie. Fire Lord Ozai is basically a talking piece of scenery.
Visually the movie was quite good. The sets, locations, special effects, costumes -- all were well done and pretty accurate to the cartoon. The bending used the same martial arts as the cartoon. The fight scenes were solid, though kind of sparse.
Ultimately, it was like they gave a 280 million dollar budget and a solid special effects team to a high-school A/V club and drama class and told them to make a movie. Since M. Night Shyamalan took credit as writer, producer, and director, I'd say it all falls squarely on his shoulders.
I should also add that the theatre I went to was sold out, and the audience seemed to enjoy the movie (except for the two kids behind me), and even laughed at the weak attempts at humour. Now this could be because it's Canada Day and 31 celcius here (38 with the humidex), so people have the day off but are reluctant to go outside for the celebrations. It's also the first night for the movie. Frankly, I'm not really sure how it's going to do financially.
Then again, I'm not sure how I want it to do. As bad as the movie was, there were moments where I was reminded how good the cartoon was, and how amazing this movie could have been. I'd say my ideal scenario at this point would be for it to do well enough that they want to make the next two, but Shyamalan can't do them due to scheduling problems or something, and they end up giving them to a better director.
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