The Glade 4.0

Just some thoughts on the films that won, and my suggestions for the ones that should have.

http://farsky.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/ ... ostmortem/

I want to argue with you over several of those, but... in the end i haven't seen all the movies nominated, and quite frankly, some I have no interest in seeing, ever.

That said, Brave was easily my favorite Pixar movie since The Incredibles.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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For what it's worth, these are my 20 favorite films of last year.

http://letterboxd.com/farsky/list/my-top-20-of-2012/

Prometheus as number one might very well invalidate every other opinion you'll ever have. Ever.

It's a brilliant picture, niggling flaws though it may have. Time will be quite kind to it, much like Scott's other sci-fi projects. Of this I've no doubt.

On the contrary, the more time passes the more I have to nitpick about it. I thought it was great the night I saw it. Then I actually thought about it.

Replace Prometheus with The Avengers, which you left off your list. I don't pretend that it's Oscar material (though it deserved its nomination for best special effects), but it certainly was my favorite.


(Nevermind, there it is down at 16. There are several movies on there I didn't like at all, and some I have no interest in seeing, and several I really want to see.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

*some spoilers*



I disagree. When I emerged from the movie theater, ultimately disappointed, after such high hopes, I thought to myself "what did everyone else think of this film?" I read reviews and saw that the film was actually very well received. I thought "okay, maybe I missed something, but I'm more interested in hearing from those that were disappointed in it like me. Did they see the same flaws I did?" They did.

The film looked beautiful. The visuals, the directing, the 'scope' of the film, all wonderful. What ultimately killed it was that it wasn't believable. I don't mean in the sci-fi sense. I mean in the human nature sense. Every film, even sci-fi films, must be believable according to an understandable and accepted set of rules. We can suspend our disbelief that we're in the future, that we're able to travel across space, that we could encounter an intelligent alien species. What we can't suspend our disbelief about is that humans will suddenly and conveniently act in unrealistic ways, contrary to human nature, to arbitrarily further the story. The human characters in this film were merely props to forcibly further the story, and were not believable - that was this film's greatest flaw. You cannot convince me that a trained biologist hand picked for that mission, on an alien world for the first time, seeing an alien creature for the first time, rising up and spreading a 'hood' just like a terrestrial snake in a threatening way, would choose to stick his finger out and try to touch it. I literally cringed at that scene. It was like watching something from a cheap B slasher flick. And there's no way that such a driven and intellectually curious.. anthropologist was it (?) - forgive me, I forget the exact occupation of the main male character scientist - even though he was obsessed only with finding our progenitors, and was disappointed when they didn't, would sit in the background, completely disinterested, while the rest of the crew reanimated an alien head on a table. Really? No interest at all with what's going on there? And no, the effects of the alien goo do not explain away those scenes.

Oh and also, at the end the movie turned into a cheap horror film a la Friday the 13th, as the last alien forwent his mission just so we could have a chase scene where the damsel flees from the monster.

I agree with nearly everything you said (for the movies I've seen) but Prometheus was one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. It was visually dull I thought, didn't make sense, and what did make sense I thought was really dumb. I had high hopes for it, but meh.

I should note that I named it my favorite film of 2012. The original link discusses what I feel are the best films of 2012. Different criteria.

Meh. Life of Pi was visually stunning and an interesting tale, but honestly beyond that I've found the film to be fairly forgettable.

What? You don't agree with Barack Obama, who called The Life of Pi "an elegant proof of God" ??

(Heh.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The levels of rationalism that the faithful go to never cease to amaze me.

The Life of Pi looked beautiful, was well directed, well acted, but ultimately juvenile and irrational.

History has shown that the people voting on the Oscars are collectively wrong. It is political and a popularity contest, not a critically accurate assessment of the good and bad of the year.

I don't watch them anymore.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

As a mother, there were parts of Brave that really resonated. And although I don't think that it was the most exciting plot, I also think that it improved with multiple viewings. (As did the first Cars movie, actually. There is a lot in it that I missed the first time. And I absolutely loved Paul Newman's performance in it.)

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

I loved Cars right from the start, but then I love motoring, especially motoring on back country roads and finding quaint out of the way places and just enjoying the experience. So the message resonated with me immediately.

I watched "The Life of Pi" yesterday. It was an entertaining movie, for certain. I'm not sure I understand the whole "elegant proof of god" bit, though. The logic seems to be, "The world is how it is, with or without God. Which scenario makes the better story? Believe that one."

Not only is that a thinly-veiled appeal to consequences, but I'm not sure any religion really has a "good story" behind their faith. They all end up with the sky-bully telling you how to live.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █