DC Movies- if at first you don't succeed...

[assault]

Yes. Ignore the reviews.

[Bazza]

8 hours ago, assault said:

Yes. Ignore the reviews.

 

Boredom?

[Greywind]

I never pay attention to reviews. Critics don't know anything about movies.

[zslane]

I think a lot of critics are bothered by things that 90% of audience members never notice. Things like plot holes, lack of character development, poor pacing, incoherent fight choreography, lack of convincing character motivation, and so on. Most viewers see the quick cuts (exciting!), the flashy visual effects (amazing!), and hear the silly jokes (hilarious!) and walk out feeling they had a good time. After all, that's really all they were after. But critics are always looking and hoping for evidence of towering artistic achievement and profound social/cultural relevance. Hence the disconnect.

[Starlord]

Eh, critics thought the other two DC movies were bad and they were.  They thought WW was good and it was.  3 outta 4 IMO.

[Ternaugh]

I see quick cuts as often fatiguing (especially if used in a 3D movie*), and sometimes as a tell that the fight choreographer didn't know what he or she was doing. It's why the Daredevil hallway fight is so amazing to me.

 

I'm also not a fan of shaky cam. At best it's a gimmick, at worst, it's just unwatchable.

 

 

*It takes a bit of time for a viewer to adapt to see a scene in 3D when scenes change, and quick cuts mean that the viewer never quite adapts to it. It's why most of the scenes in Avatar are long, without a lot of cuts, and with careful use of pans.

[Starlord]

The Daredevil stairwell fight is definitely one of the best fight scenes I've ever watched.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Hallway fight I liked, stairwell was less so for me.  Too many guys getting back up.

 

Quote

It's why most of the scenes in Avatar are long, without a lot of cuts, and with careful use of pans.

 

While I agree with your basic thesis about multiple cuts and 3d, I think Avatar was filmed that way because Peter Jackson just films things that way and he was trying to get everyone to go OOOH, AHHHH.  Even in non-3d stuff his films all are edited like that.  It works better, but that's just happenstance.

[Lord Liaden]

Peter Jackson? Don't you mean James Cameron?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sorry, right Cameron

[bigdamnhero]

On 11/19/2017 at 10:14 AM, zslane said:

I think a lot of critics are bothered by things that 90% of audience members never notice. Things like plot holes, lack of character development, poor pacing, incoherent fight choreography, lack of convincing character motivation, and so on.

...I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not? You just described the top five things that ruin a movie for me. Those aren't exactly minor technical points; they're the minimum qualifications for Not Shitty.

 

As for reviews, I only listen to the handful of reviewers whose opinions I trust. It's harder now that Roger Ebert has left us - whether or not *he* liked a movie, I could almost always tell if *I* was going to like it from his reviews.

[st barbara]

1 hour ago, bigdamnhero said:

...I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not? You just described the top five things that ruin a movie for me. Those aren't exactly minor technical points; they're the minimum qualifications for Not Shitty.

 

As for reviews, I only listen to the handful of reviewers whose opinions I trust. It's harder now that Roger Ebert has left us - whether or not *he* liked a movie, I could almost always tell if *I* was going to like it from his reviews.

I felt much the same way about Ebert.  He always seemed to explain WHY he reacted to any given movie the way he did..

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

As for reviews, I only listen to the handful of reviewers whose opinions I trust. It's harder now that Roger Ebert has left us - whether or not *he* liked a movie, I could almost always tell if *I* was going to like it from his reviews.

 

Well that's just it.  I think the best kind of review is less about the reviewer's opinion than informing potential viewers about quality of various aspects.  I can like a poorly written, stupid movie because its fun, but its still poorly written and stupid and people need to know that.  And some very, very well made movies can be very awful despite their high quality in terms of skill and technique.

[zslane]

14 hours ago, bigdamnhero said:

...I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not? You just described the top five things that ruin a movie for me.

 

I wasn't being sarcastic. Based on what you say above, I would not put you into the same category as the "general public" in terms of how you experience and process a movie. I would put you into the same category as most movie critics. Your cinematic experience passes through a much more critical lens than it does for most people. That's not a bad thing, mind you, it merely means that your feelings about a movie won't necessarily resonate with most folks who will like a movie if it is flashy and loud and full of action, regardless of its myriad structural flaws. That's why you and a hundred other critics will talk about how shitty a movie is, while the other 99.999% of the viewing public will react with, "What are you talking about? That movie was awesome!"

[bigdamnhero]

6 hours ago, zslane said:

That's why you and a hundred other critics will talk about how shitty a movie is, while the other 99.999% of the viewing public will react with, "What are you talking about? That movie was awesome!"

Well in this case, it seems like the critics and the public pretty-much agree.

[sinanju]

On 11/19/2017 at 9:14 AM, zslane said:

I think a lot of critics are bothered by things that 90% of audience members never notice. Things like plot holes, lack of character development, poor pacing, incoherent fight choreography, lack of convincing character motivation, and so on. Most viewers see the quick cuts (exciting!), the flashy visual effects (amazing!), and hear the silly jokes (hilarious!) and walk out feeling they had a good time. After all, that's really all they were after. But critics are always looking and hoping for evidence of towering artistic achievement and profound social/cultural relevance. Hence the disconnect.

 

That's the main reason I liked Roger Ebert's reviews. He was perfectly capable of saying, "It's not a *good* move, but it's a FUN movie." Not many critics can (or will) do that.

[zslane]

Yeah, I tended to agree with Ebert way more than Siskel as well.

[Ternaugh]

9 minutes ago, zslane said:

Yeah, I tended to agree with Ebert way more than Siskel as well.

 

Roger Ebert was very active in the (SF) fanzine community before he became a critic. I believe that it was one of the reasons that he'd tend to score movies on how well they represented their genre, and why his reviews were so approachable. While he could be cutting in his reviews, I never really detected malice. He simply seemed to love movies of all kinds, and wanted to share that experience with others. Read his review of the original Star Wars, and you'll see someone who wants his readers to experience the joy that he felt. That's not to say that he'd hold back when the movie stunk, those reviews were epic.

[Starlord]

On 11/21/2017 at 8:35 PM, bigdamnhero said:

Well in this case, it seems like the critics and the public pretty-much agree.

 

I disagree, I think the audience is avoiding JL due to previous movies.  Audience score is sometimes a better thing to look at on Rottentomatoes and JL has an audience score comparable with WW and Thor: Ragnarok, whereas Man of Steel, B vs S and Suicide Squad all received significantly lower audience scores.

 

Again, I thought Man of Steel, B vs S and Suicide Squad were all 'average' movies, at best - they had some great moments and that's all.  I really enjoyed WW and JL.

 

PS:  With JL, you might be seeing a number that closely approximates how much money you're going to be guaranteed from diehard, opening weekend superhero movie fans.

[Old Man]

JL felt like it came out at a weird time, immediately after Thor Ragnarok and in the same year as WW and Spider Man Homecoming.  That's a lot of comic film for the masses to consume.

 

Meanwhile, the trailer for the next DC film has dropped:

 

 

 

You know you want it.

[pinecone]

Dang! That looks good!

[mrinku]

Justice League still hasn't reached its break even point, taking into account promotional costs (it's estimated as needing to make $600-750 million). It's great that the movie isn't an outright dog, but it's still struggling at the box office, and Star Wars is about to cut into that. On a brighter note, NOT being a dog will likely mean they get over the line on post-theatre takings.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah these days it costs almost as much as making a movie to promo it (at least, they way they promote things).  So they need to earn double just to break even, so the story goes (I'm skeptical, since this is all Hollywood accounting which is 9/10ths fiction).

[Iuz the Evil]

17 hours ago, Old Man said:

JL felt like it came out at a weird time, immediately after Thor Ragnarok and in the same year as WW and Spider Man Homecoming.  That's a lot of comic film for the masses to consume.

 

Meanwhile, the trailer for the next DC film has dropped:

 

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You know you want it.

 

[mrinku]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah these days it costs almost as much as making a movie to promo it (at least, they way they promote things).  So they need to earn double just to break even, so the story goes (I'm skeptical, since this is all Hollywood accounting which is 9/10ths fiction).

 

One of the usual reasons is the previously mentioned actors' fees. They need to employ them again to promote the films. And flying them and their people around the world to do so gets real expensive real quick, even if the promotional work is counted in their original salary.

 

In the specific case of Justice League, it's probably more important for them to have a hit than to make a profit.