So I've no idea what is in theaters (in the US) these days but the 25th is coming up and I figured I should go with tradition, any movies that people can recommend?

 The Hobbit.

dhromed:

 The Hobbit.

I haven't, nor do I think I will be able to, see it in 48 fps (HFR). But they say the extra sharpness drags your suspension of disbelief into the uncanny valley.

That it looks like live theatre where you can tell they're on a set wearing prosthetics. Or so I've read.

 

Zecc:

Or so I've read.

 

You make a convincing case that's not at all completely irrational nor unnecessarily dismissive! Thank you so much!

Zecc:

That it looks like live theatre where you can tell they're on a set wearing prosthetics. Or so I've read.

Wouldn't that be an improvement in many cases?  I mean for that kind of story a play seems like it would be better than a movie anyway.

locallunatic:

Zecc:

That it looks like live theatre where you can tell they're on a set wearing prosthetics. Or so I've read.

Wouldn't that be an improvement in many cases?  I mean for that kind of story a play seems like it would be better than a movie anyway.

Sure. Same goes for 3d too.

Not to mention it's highly subjective. The author of the post I read says it himself. He mentions in passing that younger generations in particular seem to have been more receptive to the new technology, perhaps because they're not as "tainted" by the old, I guess?

I haven't experienced it myself, so I really can't comment on it.

I may be watching the film tonight btw, though I haven't discussed it with my girlfriend yet. I know she's not particularly interested in The Hobbbit, but Life of Pi is only available on 3D, which she avoids if she can*. And all the other movies seem "meh" to me. Okay, maybe Hotel Transylvania, but then we only get to choose between original voices in 3D or dubbed in 2D.

*The place we're going to, in particular, uses active glasses, which just makes it worse.

 

Zecc:

locallunatic:

Zecc:

That it looks like live theatre where you can tell they're on a set wearing prosthetics. Or so I've read.

Wouldn't that be an improvement in many cases?  I mean for that kind of story a play seems like it would be better than a movie anyway.

Sure. Same goes for 3d too.

Not to mention it's highly subjective. The author of the post I read says it himself. He mentions in passing that younger generations in particular seem to have been more receptive to the new technology, perhaps because they're not as "tainted" by the old, I guess?

I haven't experienced it myself, so I really can't comment on it.

I may be watching the film tonight btw, though I haven't discussed it with my girlfriend yet. I know she's not particularly interested in The Hobbbit, but Life of Pi is only available on 3D, which she avoids if she can*. And all the other movies seem "meh" to me. Okay, maybe Hotel Transylvania, but then we only get to choose between original voices in 3D or dubbed in 2D.

*The place we're going to, in particular, uses active glasses, which just makes it worse.

 

So do 3D movies still require one to wear special glasses? What about 3D HFR? I must admit, I was very happy with the TV / cinema technologies of 20 years ago...

So we ended up watching Hotel Transylvania in 2D.

Because it was the dubbed version I know I must have lost lots of jokes and puns that were lost in translation, or the lack of subtitles, but oh well. Such is life.

The animation was a bit hectic at times, both characters and camera, but not enough to get tiresome. I do wonder if I wouldn't have gotten slightly dizzy if I had watched it in 3D. The fact is I was a bit too close to the screen for my taste, so that didn't help.

There weren't many surprises story-wise (or were there?), but it wasn't that sort of movie anyway. What it did have was well-executed humor (I laughed at a fart joke, for cheeses' sake!), the laughing-out-loud kind even, and I don't recall a single joke that made me groan.

In short: I recommend it.

EDIT: I just realized it's been released past September in the US and is already a very high-grossing movie, so this shouldn't be news to anyone on that side of the Atlantic. Carry on.

bridget99:

So do 3D movies still require one to wear special glasses? What about 3D HFR? I must admit, I was very happy with the TV / cinema technologies of 20 years ago...

Until they find a way to inject the necessary image into each invidual eyeball of every viewer at the movie, even as they move their heads, special glasses are the way to go.

bridget99:

So do 3D movies still require one to wear special glasses?

until this technology picks up

Nelle:

bridget99:

So do 3D movies still require one to wear special glasses?

until this technology picks up

This could not be real. Muscle spasms aren't that fast or predictable. Ellowell.

I'm not sure how they are going to do three movies for The Hobit.  They covered a bunch of the important scenes in this first one and they can do Smaug as the third one, but that leaves nothing I remember from the book for the second one.

Nelle:

bridget99:

So do 3D movies still require one to wear special glasses?

until this technology picks up

 

O god torture

Zecc:

48 fps (HFR)

I saw the Hobbit in HFR - paying $25 (!) for the privilege.

To me it was like playing a FPS game where the video card is only just keeping up. Some scenes - like the wide panning shots or hand-held camera - felt like it was accelerating rather than being smooth. It was fairly disconcerting, not sure if it was from the HFR or what.

Zemm:

Zecc:

48 fps (HFR)

I saw the Hobbit in HFR - paying $25 (!) for the privilege.

To me it was like playing a FPS game where the video card is only just keeping up. Some scenes - like the wide panning shots or hand-held camera - felt like it was accelerating rather than being smooth. It was fairly disconcerting, not sure if it was from the HFR or what.

Just saw the hobbit in 3D+HFR, too (for "only" €3 more than the normal price) and same experience. I also noticed some quick movements of the actors felt weirdly out of sync, kind of as if the movie would play at an accelerated speed for a second, then flip back to normal speed. (e.g. old Bilbo rummaging through his chests in the beginning)

My personal theory is that you start noticing very small, quick movements that before were swallowed by the low framerate - whereas slow and steady movements (which I think were supposed to become "smoother" somehow) didn't change much at all, because the brain already did a good job interpolating them before. You basically reduced the low-pass filter that motions went through before.

Speaking of questionable new movie technologies, 3D. I know it's getting old, but seriously, guys could you at least do some research on visual perception before using this stuff? Protip: You can't just throw stereoscopic imaging on everything but expect zooms, transitions and depth of field to work just like before. Wasn't the whole point of 3D once that everything should feel more realistic? Yeah, that worked beautifully here.

I'm going to see the Hobbit tonight.

The main problem with 3D is that it doesn't really project sharp images in front and behind the screen, and thus depth-of-field sharpness (an important active depth cue) is always unnatural. As such 3D in its current state cannot possibly work correctly.

Next technology: holograms!

One possible reason for offering films in 3-D is that it involves more faff to film the screen in order to make DVDs of the film.

The best bit of a version of "I Robot" that a friend bought in Hong Kong was the transcriptions of the mis-heard and misunderstood dialogue as Ingrish encoded DVD subtitles.

 

 

I have extensively reviewed the Hobbit! Three stars. Not worth the ticket price.

 

3D and HFR didn't add jack shit, as expected.

HFR - specific short sequences appeared as if they were fast-forwarded. This is probably an illusion, since I've observed a smiliar thing happens when you lower a game's settings a little and go from 30 to 50-60fps. It doesn't acatually improve anything.

3D - again succeeded in making some scenes look like paper cutouts floating on top of a photograph, like the shoebox 3D thing that kids sometimes make. Otherwise completely unnoticable. This too, adds nothing at all.

What a load of bullshit to drive up ticket prices.

 

I went with 4 other people, and while we all had different subjective experiences with the 3D and HFR (some said it was hardly noticeable; other said it was terrible), none of us had anything positive to say about it.

mikedjames:

The best bit of a version of "I Robot" that a friend bought in Hong Kong was the transcriptions of the mis-heard and misunderstood dialogue as Ingrish encoded DVD subtitles.

 It's a valid interpretation.

dhromed:

I went with 4 other people, and while we all had different subjective experiences with the 3D and HFR (some said it was hardly noticeable; other said it was terrible), none of us had anything positive to say about it.

Glad I didn't do the 3D.  Anything people are looking forward to this year?

if race2 is playing, AVOID AVOID AVOID.

Going by the teaser, I now have a massive quivering erection for The Man With The Iron Fists.

dhromed:

Going by the teaser, I now have a massive quivering erection for The Man With The Iron Fists.

Filed under: badly hidden handjob joke

 

The word is "fists" and you're going for handjobs?

How tame.

These movies are currently playing locally:

Life Of Pi (3D)
Django Unchained
Dangerous Night
Oz The Great And Powerful (3D)

Who should get my money?

Anything that's not 3D, because you'll pay more and get nothing.

Life of Pi.

I haven't seen any of the others.

And ignore Dhromed, Life of Pi has *amazing* *incredible* 3D.

blakeyrat:

*amazing* *incredible* 3D.

 

There's no such thing. It flattens movies by making things look like those cardboard cutouts, like on a stage— except all the people are cardboard as well.

So yeah, granted, all those cardboard components are convincingly placed in a 3D environment, but I don't think that's what you want.

Maybe it's better to say that the 3D effect occurs only on a large scale (like an eagle soaring over a mountain) but not on short depth distances, (like the eagle itself).

The two-bar technique that you see in those "3D" gifs gives a better 3D effect.

dhromed:

There's no such thing. It flattens movies by making things look like those cardboard cutouts, like on a stage— except all the people are cardboard as well.

No no no. There's two types of 3D:

1) Good 3D: Avatar, Life of Pi
2) Shitty 3D done that way only to cash-in on a retarded 3D trend: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, that mediocre remake of Total Recall.

The difference is that 2 is done using post-processing on a normal bog-standard 2D film. The process comes out looking as you describe-- flat 2D-looking characters moving in a 3D space. Basically Golden Axe 3, but on a movie screen.

But good 3D is good. Avatar's awesome IMAX 3D is the reason you even have to think about what version of the film to watch.

blakeyrat:

1) Good 3D: Avatar, Life of Pi

The Avengers, Captain America: the first Avenger

blakeyrat:

2) Shitty 3D done that way only to cash-in on a retarded 3D trend: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, that mediocre remake of Total Recall.

and all others ...

blakeyrat:

The difference is that 2 is done using post-processing on a normal bog-standard 2D film. The process comes out looking as you describe-- flat 2D-looking characters moving in a 3D space. Basically Golden Axe 3, but on a movie screen.

No, all 3D has that flattening effect.

Including The Hobbit and MIB3.

dhromed:

No, all 3D has that flattening effect.

Including The Hobbit and MIB3.

I can't comment on movies I haven't seen. It's possible those movies had the right technology, but shitty directors/effects people who couldn't make it work.

But the difference between Life of Pi and Total Recall is night-and-day. And anyway, the story of Life of Pi is freakin' amazing regardless of the 3D.

I've almost forgiven Ang Lee for Hulk. ... almost. Then I remember he put a hulk poodle on the screen.

 

blakeyrat:

I can't comment on movies I haven't seen.

This is a conundrum. Clearly we need more overlap.

I saw Avatar in 2D, so I can't comment on that either. Would not have been worth the extra $ anyway.

I saw one other movie in 3D, but I can't remember what it was.  :\

I'm not going to watch Life of Pi, because I am done with emotionally void movies like Cameron's Avatar and The Dark Knight. I liked Watchmen, and it was still strong on a second viewing, though surprisingly less so. My most surprising re-watched favourite is 300, which basically delivered a mightly blow to my mind even on an old-ass CRT TV plus commercial breaks.

All my colleges are going to see Django Unchained and I am going with them.

dhromed:

I am done with emotionally void movies

Go see Seven Psicopaths if you can. It's good fun and non-emotionally-void.

Zecc:

Seven Psicopaths

 

WELL SEE ABOUT THAT.

Also, you are the first dyslexic on this forum that actually shows it.

Nagesh:

All my colleges are going to see Django Unchained and I am going with them.

 

Have fun!

dhromed:

Also, you are the first dyslexic on this forum that actually shows it.

Bad English and/or bad typing due to posting when tired is not the same as dyslexia.

Zecc:

Bad English and/or bad typing due to posting when tired is not the same as dyslexia.

 

YES IT IS.

IS TOO IS TOO IS TOO

dhromed:

Zecc:

Seven Psicopaths

WELL SEE ABOUT THAT.

Also, you are the first dyslexic on this forum that actually shows it.

I would totally watch a movie named "Seven Piscopopaths", assuming it was cast with Joe Piscopo playing all 7 lead roles.

 I thought 'Oz the great and powerful' was really good, minus the few designed for 3d moments of things jabbing at the screen (saw in 2d)

 'Burt Wonderstone' wasn't bad, but nothing will be lost by waiting for video.

 

 

Django Unchained is good movie. I like it.