annathepiper: Star Wars Procession (Star Wars Procession)
The Rise of Skywalker Poster

The Rise of Skywalker

On Christmas Day, Dara and I did our annual “go see a movie” thing. And, as should surprise exactly none of you who follow me and my postings, that movie was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s taken me a few days to get a post together because I’ve been mulling over my thoughts on it, hardcore. The picoreview: I liked several things about it, and actively hated a few other things. Overall I found it a serviceable finale to the Skywalker saga, but only serviceable, which was a disappointment to me. It didn’t engage me emotionally nearly as much as I was hoping for.

I’ve seen reviews that have described the movie as unimaginative. That’s… kind of where I am with it. It makes some plot choices that feel utterly predictable, and presents them in a way that doesn’t reach the level The Force Awakens did to make them fun anyway.

That said, I’m still glad I saw it, and at least after my first viewing, I’m pretty sure I found it more enjoyable than any of the three movies in the prequel trilogy. I will probably need to see it again to find out whether my current overall opinion holds.

Follow the wayfinder to the SPOILERS behind the fold! As always, if you’re coming over to this post from anywhere it’s crossposted (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn), please comment here to try to keep spoilers in a contained area. Dreamwidth readers, your comments section is fair game. (But if any Dreamwidth readers haven’t seen the movie yet, be warned that the comments ARE a spoiler-friendly zone!)

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annathepiper: (Alan YES!)
Captain Marvel

Captain Marvel

My household went to see Captain Marvel this past Thursday night. We’re not normally an opening-weekend movie-viewing type of household, but this time I wanted to make an exception. And I was deeply delighted that we did.

Because, spoiler-free picoreview: CAROL DANVERS IS MAGNIFICENT AND I MUST SEE THIS MOVIE AGAIN.

Behind the cut you will find ALL THE SPOILERS. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, and care about spoilers, come back and read this later.

Coming over from Facebook or Twitter? If so, please be mindful about what replies you may give me on those sites.

If you’re reading this either directly on angelahighland.com OR on my Dreamwidth account, spoilers in the comments are fair game.

Now with all the caveats out of the way, let’s talk Captain Marvel. πŸ˜€

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annathepiper: Star Wars Procession (Star Wars Procession)

There’s been a lot of dubious buzz over the last several months about Solo: A Star Wars Story. A lot of folks have been concerned about the change in directors, and about whether the movie would deliver a cohesive story. It’s only been out a week, and there’s buzz now about OHNOEZ DID IT FLOP, apparently because it hasn’t made quite as gigantic a pile of money as The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi have done.

With all this negative buzz going around, you could easily conclude that the movie sucks. I am delighted to report, Internets, that this is not the case.

As y’all know I’m a lifelong fangirl for Harrison Ford in general, and for Han Solo in particular. So I was absolutely expecting to come into this movie all Judgy McJudgypants. Because of my Ford fangirldom, but also because of my longstanding love of the Han Solo backstory novels by Brian Daley and A.C. Crispin. The Crispins in particular are near and dear to my heart, as I relied upon them heavily for inspiration when playing Han on Star Wars MUSH back in the day.

Happily, while this movie’s story is of course different in the minor details (while getting the major ones generally right), its spirit felt entirely like those novels. It was just generally fun in a way we don’t usually get with Star Wars flicks. By which I mean, we’re not dealing with galaxy-shaking stakes here. This is an origin story, a heist-flick-in-space, with the Empire only a background presence rather than the main point.

And while Alden Ehrenreich isn’t Harrison Ford, I am now happy to accept his take on Han. Also, Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian is absolutely glorious, and so is the droid L3.

All in all, if you’re a Star Wars fan–and especially if you’re a Han fan–go see it!

Now let’s have a swing past the Spoiler Mines of Kessel, shall we?

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

My household doesn’t usually see movies on opening weekend. But a couple of days ago Dara informed me that spoilers were falling like rain on her social media feeds! So yesterday evening, we scampered off for a viewing of Avengers: Infinity War at one of our local theaters.

I was deeply amused that said theater was running the film on almost every single one of their screens. I was equally amused, on the way out, to see that one of the ticket takers was dressed up like Loki. So they were clearly milking the Marvel money cow for all it’s worth.

As for the movie itself? This post will talk about it in a general non-spoilery fashion. I’ll do another post with in-depth spoiler-laden commentary.

Pacing and cast

I’ve seen multiple headlines of reviews talking about the movie being overstuffed. These reviews are not wrong. Almost every single character we’ve had introduced to us in the last ten years of the MCU shows up. Some get more screen time than others, as is inevitable with a cast this large. But with so many characters in play, the film has very little time to do much with any of them, except for the ones specifically involved with the biggest plot points.

And, given that the film’s running time is 2 hours 29 minutes, that’s a lot of time to be juggling so many characters.

Fight scenes make up a lot of the two and a half hours. Dara and I talked about how in some ways the pacing of this movie felt like The Battle of the Five Armies, in that it was almost non-stop fighty fighty fighty fighty. Because of this, some of y’all may find the film kind of exhausting. I personally didn’t; despite the long running time, I mostly felt like it moved well. I felt only a time or two that things were dragging a bit, and those moments were fleeting.

So very much in media res

I cannot stress this enough: this film expects you to know what happened in the films that led up to this one. If you haven’t been heavily invested in the MCU up until this point, this is so very not the place to come into the storyline. This is the cinematic equivalent of trying to come in on the Harry Potter books with book 7, or The Lord of the Rings with Return of the King.

For me, this was just fine. I have been heavily invested in the MCU. But I can definitely see that a casual moviegoer, someone who may have missed one or more of the previous movies, could come into this movie and be very, very lost.

So what I’m saying here is, brush up on previous MCU plots before you go see Infinity War. Go read Wikipedia plot summaries of them at the very least, if you don’t have time to watch the actual films. You don’t need to know every single previous MCU film well for the important plot points of this one to make sense. But you should brush up on Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: Civil War, and Thor: Ragnarok.

Comic book cosmology, oh my yes

One more important point I want to make: we are now well and thoroughly into the territory of some of the wackier aspects of comic book plots here, people. In particular, we’re getting into the cosmology of the Marvel Universe, with the entire notion of the Infinity Stones, and what Thanos wants to do with them.

A lot of the action is in space, or on worlds that aren’t Earth. Some of these sequences are handled more realistically than others. Dara told me after we came out of the film that certain parts of it knocked her right out of the story, because of her immediate “uh, no” reaction. You’ll want to break out the industrial strength cables for the suspension of your disbelief here, y’all.

There are multiple on-screen deaths, be warned. But more than one of them failed to hit me with the Feels that I think the film wanted out of me, specifically because I knew that this was a comic book plot and that deaths are almost never final in these sorts of storylines. Knowing that we’re into the wackier cosmology of the Marvel universe at this point distanced me in a way some of the earlier films didn’t do, because of their better grounding in realism. (Notably, the first two Captain Americas.)

That said: I did totally tear up at certain points during the climax of the story.

Thanos

Last but not least, Thanos, our Big Bad. How well he’ll work for you will, again, depend upon how well you roll with wacky cosmic comic book plots. Arguably, Thanos’ motivations are shaky at best. But given that, Josh Brolin played him well. We get into some of Thanos’ general backstory, as well as the backstory of how he took Gamora off her home planet when she was a child. That helped make me buy his direct interactions with Gamora and Nebula, at least, if not his overall motivations.

And I’ll say this: the big guy was legit scary in battle. So were his minions, generally referred to as “the Children of Thanos” on screen. (These characters do actually have names; I looked them up on Wikipedia. But I don’t recollect hearing any of them called by these names in the movie.)

All in all, Infinity War definitely entertained me. One more warning, though: this movie ends in a dark cliffhanger-y sort of place. The real resolution isn’t due until the next Avengers flick drops in May 2019. So if you’re not a fan of cliffhangers, consider whether you want to see this film in a theater now, vs. watching it much closer to when the next one comes out.

Stand by for the spoiler-y post, wherein I will talk about this flick in a lot more depth. πŸ˜€

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: Star Wars Procession (Star Wars Procession)
Dara and I saw The Last Jedi finally over Christmas. Here are the posts I made on angelahighland.com about that--there are two, one without spoilers and one with!

If you haven't seen the movie yet, you might want to go to the no spoiler post.

If you have seen the movie, hop right on over to the spoiler post.

I expect a lot of you probably beat Dara and me to seeing it. But in case some of you haven't yet, be mindful of any comments that might get left on this post, too. There may be spoilers there!
annathepiper: Star Wars Procession (Star Wars Procession)
Two posts I've put up for those who might be interested:

A review of Blade Runner 2049, which, happily, doesn't suck!

Long overdue next post in the Bilingual Lord of the Rings Reread, in which I cover the French edition of Chapter 2 of Fellowship. Long post is long, and also extremely geeky, but as y'all know, that is indeed how I roll.

In other tidbits of random news:

I have ambitions of tackling Nanowrimo next month, because apparently I just need the external impetus to get any damn writing done this year. The overall plan will be to try to throw as many words at possible at the novellas, and see if I can drag those bastards closer to being done.

I've been fighting what appears to be a sinus infection, or possibly leftover irritation after the last smoke incident we had in these parts mid-September, or maybe a little of each. Went to my usual clinic this morning, and got authorized for a round of antibiotics, so hopefully this'll make things settle down. My nose has otherwise healed up pretty well from the surgery earlier this year.

[personal profile] solarbird and I joined the Planet Fitness gym down the hill from our house, and I've been doing weekend workouts there, in the name of trying to get my metabolism and weight back under control. Also because next year, Big Fish will be moving offices and this will directly impact my commute. I'll still be taking the same bus, but will have a much shorter distance to walk from where I need to get off to where the office will actually be. So I won't have the nice long walk anymore as daily exercise. Therefore a new exercise regime is called for.

And so far, Planet Fitness is nice. I have discovered I like working with the arc trainers and ellipticals, which makes me feel better about paying money to exercise at a gym as opposed to using the old treadmill we actually have in the house. Plus, after talking with their personal trainer on staff, I've started doing light work with lat pulldowns and low rows, to gently work the muscles on my back right around my shoulderblades. This, as those of you who are familiar with my medical history posts may recall, is the land of Reconstruction Surgery and to this day, those muscles still get a bit cranky at me in the cold or if I happen to turn the wrong way. I'm hoping that gentle weights work will give my lats more stability and limber my back up in general.

And oh yes: the trailer for The Last Jedi dropped, and what I have to say about that is YES BRING THIS MOVIE UNTO ME. :D
annathepiper: (Alan YES!)
Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman

Ever since I heard that there was finally going to be a standalone Wonder Woman movie, I’ve been living in anticipation of seeing it. Last night, my household went to do so. Picoreview: goddamn, you guys, that was satisfying. πŸ˜€ I had a few quibbles with it, but they were minor quibbles at best. I teared up twice during the movie. Chris Pine is now certainly my favorite of the small sample set of versions of Steve Trevor I’ve seen. And most importantly, Gal Gadot was a complete delight to watch, from start to finish.

I shall also note for the record that even at our showing at the local iPic theater, we had two different women in full on cosplay, one as Wonder Woman and another as Supergirl. And I spotted a third woman wearing a Wondy tiara. Because we are a nerd town. It’s TRUE.

Spoilers lie beyond the veil that hides Themiscyra from the world of men! And I DO MEAN SPOILERS.

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: Blow This Thing (Blow This Thing)
Rogue One

Rogue One

I now get to say this twice in a row: that? That was a goddamned Star Wars movie.

Dara and I went to go see this thing in 3D IMAX today, and when the credits rolled, we took off our glasses and looked at each other. We’d both been crying. And we nodded knowingly to one another as we realized that, and came out of the theater talking about how we both had ALL THE FEELS.

Because yeah, even more than The Force Awakens (which, let me remind you, I quite adored), this movie grabbed hold of everything I loved from A New Hope and brought it roaring back to life.

Open the shield for transmission because I am about to broadcast SPOILERS.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)
Divided We Fall

Divided We Fall

Dara, Paul, and I went and saw Captain America: Civil War last night, and I can say without reservation: gracious, that was satisfying.

Now, Cap’s name is in the title of this thing (and Dara opined that its title should have been Captain America: Why Don’t Any of You Fuckers Listen to Steve?, or perhaps Captain America: He’s Not Perfect, Except For His Abs). But really, this is way more of an Avengers movie. Though granted, it also has a huge focus on Cap. I mention this though because if you go in expecting this to have the same focus on Cap that the previous movies did, you might be a bit disappointed. But if you think of this more as an Avengers movie with a focus on Cap, it works way better. Particularly given how so much of this movie’s plot draws from the events in Age of Ultron.

But of course, it’s also drawing on events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This is not a good movie to come in cold to the MCU, is what I’m sayin’ here. If you haven’t seen either of those movies yet, this one will make way less sense.

I’ve seen a lot of enthusing about the new kid playing Spidey. Of whom I mostly have this to say: I’m having a hard time mustering much giveadamn for yet another iteration of Spidey, particularly when pulling him into the MCU delayed Captain Marvel. Marf. Though, even given my crankiness about that, I’ll cheerfully grant this kid was charming and fun. Yesterday I put up a post on Here Be Magic about why I love Supergirl, and one of the things I call out there is how DC’s doing such a lovely job bringing a tone of brightness and optimism to that show. This iteration of Spidey is helping do that for the MCU, I feel, and I can’t help but appreciate that.

Still, though, I think I would have been way more on board with another Spidey if this one had been Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker. Which is why, when it comes to the new faces introduced in this movie, I was way more excited by Black Panther. His character was amazing, and I am 100% ON BOARD with his forthcoming movie.

Before I get into spoiler discussion, here are some other reviews from sites I regularly follow, which I just doublechecked now that I’ve seen the movie myself. I’m pretty much ON BOARD with everything these links have to say, too. Particularly the parts about the biceps. πŸ˜€

Captain America: Civil War is the Emotional Pinnacle of Superhero Movies on Tor.com

Review: Captain America: Civil War Is Good (but Too Stuffed to be Great) on The Mary Sue

Movie Review: Captain America: Civil War on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

And now, for spoilers! ALL THE SPOILERS behind the fold!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: Blow This Thing (Blow This Thing)

Dara and I, accompanied by friends Mimi and Layna, have finally seen The Force Awakens.

YOU GUYS. That? That right there? That was a goddamned Star Wars film. And let me put this in perspective for you: do you all know the last time I would have walked out of a movie theater entirely emotionally satisfied with a Star Wars film? That would have been 1980–the year The Empire Strikes Back came out.

And I can say this. Even having had a major plot point spoiled for me (and I am STILL cranky at the player on Dungeon Boss chat who blew that for me, grr), I was still full of the feels. And I have many, many thoughts on what I just witnessed, and I shall now share them with you all!

Needless to say, SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS OMG SO MANY SPOILERS YOUR FLEET CANNOT REPEL SPOILERS OF THIS MAGNITUDE AND DID I MENTION SPOILERS? If you’re coming over from one of the social media networks or from LJ or Dreamwidth to read this, I beg you: please stay right on angelahighland.com if you want to drop comments. Because there will be spoilers and I want to minimize their presence anywhere this post gets mirrored. If I see you drop a spoiler-related comment on any of my social media networks where this post goes up, I WILL DELETE THAT COMMENT. Do not make Han cranky!

Han says NO.

Han says NO.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding! Let’s get to it, shall we? And did I mention OMG SPOILERS?

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Aubrey Orly?)
Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending

So Dara and I finally watched Jupiter Ascending, and, since fellow Here Be Magic author Joely Sue Burkhart has a review up today, I thought I’d talk about my own thoughts on the movie as well!

I gotta say, Dara and I both found this movie far more coherent than we were expecting, given the overall “THIS MOVIE IS SO TERRIBLE AND YOU SHOULD WATCH IT ANYWAY!” reactions we were seeing. If somebody has that reaction to a movie, what that says to me is, “this movie is a riffable MST3K fest”. ‘Cause y’know, Dara and I have a long history of loving us some crappy movies. So we went into this movie totally expecting to have to break out the booze while we made with the riffs.

And honestly? That’s not the movie we got. Neither of us felt the need to point and laugh at anything we saw, which was a pleasant surprise.

Dara mentioned to me that it totally played for her like a version of the Dune movie only with a female protagonist–and that in her view, people had been interpreting this movie as a “Chosen One” plot, when it’s not. It’s a “Hidden Princess” plot, which is not one we’ve seen much of in popular media the last several decades. So it’s kind of unsurprising that a lot of audiences aren’t entirely sure how to react to this plot.

Overall, we both found it perfectly easy to follow, and there were quite a few bits of it that I in fact actively liked. Jupiter’s father, to my surprise, was played by James d’Arcy; when I saw that, I was all “HEY that’s the guy who played Jarvis!” Which was great fun. I liked him as a character, and outright loved that his love of astronomy led him to want to name his daughter after the biggest planet in the solar system, because of that same sense of love and wonder.

And I loved that Jupiter’s family on her mother’s side had a lot of on-camera actual Russian dialogue.

And as a bit of worldbuilding-in-dialogue, I quite liked the concept of “when genes reappear in the exact same order, that’s reincarnation”. It was a single quick line, and rather deftly tossed out a tasty new way of looking at reincarnation that I hadn’t thought about before.

And okay yeah, Channing Tatum was pretty tasty as Caine, I’ll admit–as y’all might guess from my books, I’m rather a sucker for guys with pointed ears. But what I found most appealing about him? The flying boots. Because that? That was pretty awesome.

The three siblings contending for mastery of the Earth were all pretty over-the-top, sure. But given the interstellar society they’d set up, and given the plot reason they specifically set up for WHY they were considering the Earth as a resource, I was willing to buy that these were all reprehensible people in their own individual ways.

Sure, there were a bunch of silly contrivances in the plot, but nothing particularly sillier than anything else I’ve seen in SF movies over the years. All in all I filed this in the category of “Big Stupid Fun”, akin to Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy. Which is to say: kind of fluffy, but absolutely entertaining. Enough so that I’m considering buying my own copy to add to my library, ’cause yeah. I’d like to see this again.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Wrath of Gaz)
Imperator Furiosa

Imperator Furiosa

I’m someone who grew up in the 80’s–I graduated high school in 1987–and yet somehow managed to never see any of the first three Mad Max movies. My only real memory associated with any of them is Tina Turner’s Thunderdome song and the video that went with it, ’cause yeah, that song was pretty awesome.

This meant, though, that I came into Fury Road with pretty much no preconceptions of what to expect in a Mad Max movie, other than the buzz I’d seen all over The Mary Sue and Tor.com about it. It’s that buzz which sold me on having to see the movie, since if I hadn’t heard in advance how well it treated the female characters, I would have had no interest in seeing it. It helped, too, that my housemate Paul went ahead and saw it before Dara and I did, and reported to us that it was the most metal movie he’d ever seen and that he was absolutely ready to see it again with us. Likewise, another local friend of ours, userinfogfish, spoke very, very highly of it–and had gotten to the point of considering a fourth viewing.

So what did I think? Picoreview: gracious, there sure was a lot of driving in this movie! And shooting! And explosions! I didn’t find it quite the religious experience that the Mary Sue reviewer or the Tor.com reviewer did. And I do have to admit that I found the non-stop action a bit too wearying for my personal tastes, even though I could also see the cinematic artistry involved in portraying it.

But I was mostly there for the female characters, so all that was rather okay. And I was definitely quite satisfied with them–not only Furiosa, who was awesomeness incarnate, but also the escaping Wives and the Vuvalini. Of the Wives, I think my favorite is Capable. Not only because of her name, but ALSO because I just discovered that the actress who plays her, Riley Keough, is Elvis Presley’s granddaughter. πŸ˜€

Additional interesting commentary I found on the film:

And now, some spoiler-specific commentary of my own behind the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

My household finally saw Age of Ultron last night, along with our pal Jenny. Which means I can finally start paying attention to my various feeds again, since several of the sites I follow have been all AGE OF ULTRON AGE OF ULTRON AGE OF ULTRON. Several of the other people I follow, too.

Picoreview: I enjoyed it, although it didn’t hit me with quite the same hammerstrike of Awesome that was the first Avengers movie, or the sleekly plotted tightness of Winter Soldier. There were bits of it I have issues with, and in places it felt rushed and crowded. Overall, I’m thinking B+ territory.

The spoilers cannot lift the hammer and are therefore clearly not Worthy!

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (A Star Shines)

Dara and I went out last night with friends for her first viewing of Five Armies and my second one. My overall reaction to the movie remains pretty close to my initial one, i.e., I’m clocking it in at a B-.

I’m overall still pretty happy with the movies we got; as I said in my initial post, I’d rather spend time talking about what I love about these movies rather than lambasting Mr. Jackson for the movies he didn’t make. And with that in mind, I wanted to address a couple of things from Dara’s reactions that actually make me feel better about certain things I talked about in the first post.

Everyone to the gate for SPOILERS!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

I have seen Five Armies! All hail Paul who got invited to a private early showing courtesy of his brand new workplace, and since he was able to bring a guest, I came with him. So we just got home from seeing the movie!

First, the spoiler-free picoreview: if you didn’t like Unexpected Journey or Desolation of Smaug, you probably won’t like Five Armies either. But I for one enjoyed myself immensely, and as I told folks at work today, I was already a hundred percent on board with Jackson’s story. This movie didn’t do anything to shake me off of that.

Parts of the movie played kind of weirdly shakily to me. Parts were played out in ways I was not expecting at all. One side character was entirely unnecessary. But Mr. Freeman and Mr. Armitage were every bit as spectacular as expected, and all the parts that I expected to make me go *WAUGH* did in fact do so. My only regret is that we had to leave the theater before I could give a full proper listen to Mr. Boyd’s song over the closing credits. I will be making a point of listening to that properly on my second viewing.

Full commentary, with spoilers, is behind the fold (or over on angelahighland.com, if you’re seeing this on LJ or Dreamwidth). If you’re reading this on LJ or Dreamwidth, come on over to angelahighland.com’s master post to comment. Ditto if you clicked in from Facebook or Twitter or G+ or Tumblr–I ask that you leave spoiler commentary on this post in order to keep it away from folks who haven’t seen the movie yet.

(And one other thing: with all due respect, please don’t rant at me about how much you’re hating Jackson’s movies on my post. I don’t need to hear you ranting about how it should have been just one movie or two. I PARTICULARLY don’t need to hear it if you hate Tauriel and everything her character stands for.

Believe me, The Hobbit is a critical, formative part of my childhood, too. And I get the feeling of betrayal if a screen adaptation of a movie actively breaks part of your childhood for you. But I don’t subscribe to that myself. My childhood is not broken because Jackson’s movies don’t line up with the story in my head when I read the book. Because look, people, we still have the book. Tolkien’s immortal words are not damaged or erased from history because Jackson chose to implement a different version of the story. The original still exists and we can read it as often as we like.

I’m not saying these movies are perfect, and I certainly don’t think they quite measure up to The Lord of the Rings movies. But I do actively enjoy them. Ranting at me about how much you hate them will only make us both sad. For all the flaws I find in this trilogy, I do still actively love it, and I much prefer to celebrate what I love about the movies we got rather than wasting my time ranting about the movies we didn’t get. I will acknowledge their flaws, yes, but I will also take great pleasure in the things I love about them.

If the second movie actively pissed you off, just save yourself time and trouble and don’t go see the third one. Nobody needs to hit themselves over the head with a hammer like that. Hitting yourself over the head with a hammer hurts. So don’t do that, okay? Okay.)

And now at last: to the gates! For SPOILERS!

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan YES!)

I have finally acquired a copy of the Extended Edition of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and am delighted to report that as with the EE for An Unexpected Journey, I very much enjoyed the EE cut of movie #2! Which is not terribly surprising, given that I very much loved the theatrical cut. (And as a general reminder, I am indeed on Team Tauriel.)

Details behind the fold! Send the burglar in for spoilers! (And for reference, TheOneRing.net has an excellent breakdown of the specific new footage, right over here.)

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

Dara and I went to go see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes last night, since we’d seen the first of this set of movies not terribly long ago and liked it well enough that we wanted to see this one now that it’s out. Survey says: good story, although in some ways I actually liked Rise better, just because this one hit a few predictable notes. Overall though I still quite liked it.

Spoilers are climbing into the tower behind the fold!

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

Dara and I went to go see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes last night, since we’d seen the first of this set of movies not terribly long ago and liked it well enough that we wanted to see this one now that it’s out. Survey says: good story, although in some ways I actually liked Rise better, just because this one hit a few predictable notes. Overall though I still quite liked it.

Spoilers are climbing into the tower behind the fold!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

Dara and I were a bit late to seeing this movie; we know it’s been out for weeks now. But we finally got a chance to see it before it vanished from the theaters, and I’m pleased we did. Overall picoreview: pretty good, though I have a bit of a hard time going above that, mostly because both Dara and I wish there would have been more substance to the script.

(ETA: Dara in particular lays down an excellent argument about symmetry–about failing to show us King Stefan sufficiently justifying his evil actions, and Maleficent justifying her good ones. Go see what she has to say, too!)

Overall, though, holy crap Angelina Jolie rocked the hell out of the role. And the costume and wardrobe and makeup people should get an Oscar alone just for the work they did on her eyes, her facial structure, the horns, and the cheekbones. Also, WINGS. Because I mean DAMN.

I’ve been asked if this film is kid-friendly, and I’ll say here what I said on Facebook: that I do have the caveat of not being a parent, and not regularly interacting with children, so I’m not exactly in a position to be the best judge of that. That said, I’d suspect that there’s some intensity here that might be a bit much for younger children, particularly in the violent climax of the story, as well as overall rather adult plot themes. Older children may fare better, but that could depend on the kid.

Spoilers behind the wall of thorns!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

annathepiper: (Alan and Sean Ordinary Day)

Dara and I were a bit late to seeing this movie; we know it’s been out for weeks now. But we finally got a chance to see it before it vanished from the theaters, and I’m pleased we did. Overall picoreview: pretty good, though I have a bit of a hard time going above that, mostly because both Dara and I wish there would have been more substance to the script.

(ETA: Dara in particular lays down an excellent argument about symmetry–about failing to show us King Stefan sufficiently justifying his evil actions, and Maleficent justifying her good ones. Go see what she has to say, too!)

Overall, though, holy crap Angelina Jolie rocked the hell out of the role. And the costume and wardrobe and makeup people should get an Oscar alone just for the work they did on her eyes, her facial structure, the horns, and the cheekbones. Also, WINGS. Because I mean DAMN.

I’ve been asked if this film is kid-friendly, and I’ll say here what I said on Facebook: that I do have the caveat of not being a parent, and not regularly interacting with children, so I’m not exactly in a position to be the best judge of that. That said, I’d suspect that there’s some intensity here that might be a bit much for younger children, particularly in the violent climax of the story, as well as overall rather adult plot themes. Older children may fare better, but that could depend on the kid.

Spoilers behind the wall of thorns!

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

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