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Author Topic: Write about the last movie you watched (2006-2010)  (Read 5998010 times)

FroHam X

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39180 on: December 15, 2010, 12:04:55 PM »
I think FroHam agrees as well, though he's more enamored by Dumbledore v. Voldemort and I think the entire sequence should get credited, starting with the hello to Jason Isaacs

Did you even read my review, or did you just skim it?

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The true excitement, though, comes during the film's climax. The battle in the Hall of Prophesies is a visual and aural tour de force. Spells whizz and crack by with stunning energy, and it all has the feel of an awesome gunfight played out in a fantastical setting and with fantastical guns. At one point during the chase through the endless shelves of prophecies, Ginny Weasley casts a spell so powerful it causes practically the entire room to explode and all the shelves to being falling like dominos. It's a moment so effectively delivered that even watching it again it took my breath away.

Then the action shifts to a setting not unlike a dark cave. The kids are cornered, but suddenly the Order of the Phoenix arrives in drops of bright white smoke. The fight moves into a whole new realm of awesome. Spells are cast back and forth so effortlessly that at some points they feel like carefully choreographed sword fights. And almost as quickly as it all began, it all comes to a screeching halt. Sirius is killed and the moment is painfully drawn out. Harry chases a maniacal Bellatrix LeStrange down the main corridor of the Ministry and there he comes face to face with Voldemort himself.

Before anything seriously dangerous can happen, Dumbledore shows up. And if the previous bit of action between the Order and the Death Eaters was awesome, the sequence that follows it is insanely badass. I simply have no better way to describe it. The force of magic used is epic in a way that we have not yet experienced in the series. What was previously a sword fight has become a majestic dance. Huge spells fly back and forth and are manipulated and sent back out into the room. There are no verbal spells, no talking it's all left to the amazing cinematography, effects, and most of all the sound effects. The sound in this scene is some of the best sound work I have ever heard. Each spell radiates and envelops the rooms. One spell involving a sphere of water sounds dense and heavy, and then another, in which a spell is condensed into nothingness and silence and then blasts outward causing glass to shatter and fly everywhere is mindblowing. This is easily the best climactic sequence in the series so far. I would imagine only Deathly Hallows Part 2 could give it a run for its money, but even that grand finale would have a hard time topping what Yates did here.

I praised the whole damn thing. All three sections of it. I simply claim that the best part of the climax is its climax.


And while I agree that the action scenes in 6 and 7a are not nearly as good as the end of 5, I still think they are very well crafted. I mean I even said in my review that it would be hard to match the heights of that action sequence in any of the following films. The action scenes in 7a are not made to be especially showy. This is done on purpose. You don't want to see the characters take part in big triumphant battle scenes in this movie where thematically the film is dealing with these characters at their darkest point, on their own, wandering in circles and unlikely to succeed at their task.

The opening chase scene is fine as a chase scene, but it is more marked by its nature as kind of a standard car chase, only through the air. The scene actually comes most alive in the moments of loss. When they burst through the cloud and you see tons of death eaters flying around, or when Voldemort gets pissed and electrical towers around him get destroyed.

There is the stuff in the house, which is meant to play out more like a small-scale horror film, and trust me it works. Every audience I've seen the movie with has let out a collective sigh of relief when they fly out the window. And even the chase through the Ministry halls at the end of that great sequence is tense and exciting. I love that bit with the paper flying at Yaxley, and I love the way it's all staged with Yaxley walking all intense and Michael Myers-like and slowly breaking into an angry run. The destruction at the Lovegood house is all just a ton of stuff bursting and flying all over the place, same with the wedding attack, but that's how those scenes are meant to play, and I still never lost my sense of space in them.

The only action scene that is really disorienting is that quick chase in the woods near the end. And even then it has that cool Private Ryan look and I love the way Yates cuts out the music and focuses on the sound effects. Speaking of which, the small duel in the cafe is played with just dialogue and sound effects and it works brilliantly.

Either way, I disagree that the action scenes are problematic. They may not have the amazing energy of the scene at the end of 5, but in general they are shorter, less grand. If you want crazy action I have a feeling the Gringotts sequence in 7b will be pretty awesome.
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Bondo

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39181 on: December 15, 2010, 12:29:19 PM »
Like the hamdeer says, the only film that has a scene in it that had much potential to surpass the whole end of 5 is 7b...so we'll see. But yeah, I didn't have any problem with the action of 7a...the scenes just didn't lend themselves to breathtaking action and many of them lend themselves to incoherence. There is no coherence in an ambush.

Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39182 on: December 15, 2010, 03:05:27 PM »
True, the ambush bit could be deliberately confusing, but it's too incoherent. You could have conveyed it without taking away any frame of reference for the audience.

zarodinu

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39183 on: December 15, 2010, 03:17:04 PM »
How to Train Your Dragon

Lasted 15 minutes through this, didn't even get to the part where he meets the dragon.  The voice acting and the dialogue was SO annoying.  Characters speak in this B actor doing a cartoon sort of voice and the script is so cliche that one minute in I knew every thing that would happen in this movie.  But my God that protagonist - sounds like a sixteen year old doing an impression of Woody Allen.  Absolutely unwatchable.

1/10
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GothamCity151

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39184 on: December 15, 2010, 03:28:17 PM »
How to Train Your Dragon

Lasted 15 minutes through this, didn't even get to the part where he meets the dragon.  The voice acting and the dialogue was SO annoying.  Characters speak in this B actor doing a cartoon sort of voice and the script is so cliche that one minute in I knew every thing that would happen in this movie.  But my God that protagonist - sounds like a sixteen year old doing an impression of Woody Allen.  Absolutely unwatchable.

1/10

I still want to see it, despite your hate.

zarodinu

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39185 on: December 15, 2010, 03:43:43 PM »
How to Train Your Dragon

Lasted 15 minutes through this, didn't even get to the part where he meets the dragon.  The voice acting and the dialogue was SO annoying.  Characters speak in this B actor doing a cartoon sort of voice and the script is so cliche that one minute in I knew every thing that would happen in this movie.  But my God that protagonist - sounds like a sixteen year old doing an impression of Woody Allen.  Absolutely unwatchable.

1/10

I still want to see it, despite your hate.

Watch it if you are into that sort of thing, its like every other Dreamworks movie I ever saw, basically a movie for children, full of annoying self referential dialogue delivered by bad actors.  Watch the first 15 minutes of WALL-E or Nausicaa and compare them to this crap.  Looking forward to the Illusionist.
I’ve lied to men who wear belts. I’ve lied to men who wear suspenders. But I’d never be so stupid as to lie to a man who wears both a belt and suspenders.

smirnoff

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39186 on: December 15, 2010, 04:00:12 PM »
After being waaaay let down by Kung-Fu Panda I'm not hurrying to see anything by dreamworks animation. I'm not their target obviously.

Melvil

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39187 on: December 15, 2010, 04:24:07 PM »
I didn't think How to Train Your Dragon was nearly as good as the hype had made it out to be, but it's also not nearly as bad as zarodinu makes it sound. To be fair, I did think the beginning was probably the weakest part of the movie though.

'Noke

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39188 on: December 15, 2010, 04:59:23 PM »

Monsters

One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. It's just....the colours Gareth Edwards gets, the images, the sheer beauty this film is. The jungles and the rivers, the sunsets and lights, the close ups so bare and intricate, and the way he juggles focus. The tank on water, the boat by the sunset, the wide shot of the shrines built for those killed by the monsters, and the giant aztec temple, overlooking the long wall.  It's the way he so simply but captivatingly pulls us in, makes us feel the emotion of these people and the love between the main characters. The poverty with the jungle with the destruction. Anchored by two incredible performances, and some perfect filmmaking. And those scenes in the US, the destruction of towns, the dance (metaphorically) at the gas station, with the most brilliant reveal of the monster in the lightning overhead. The monster work is impeccable. Exit Through the Gift Shop has met it's match.
I actually consider a lot of movies to be life-changing! I take them to my heart and they melt into my personality.

Melvil

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Re: Write about the last movie you watched
« Reply #39189 on: December 15, 2010, 05:04:26 PM »
Wow! That's a bit surprising to hear, but it's great to hear that kind of enthusiasm! I'm definitely more excited to check it out now than before.

 

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