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The animated feature Oscar is bulls**t. The focus should be on the "feature", but the best animation wins. Make sure you have some well-animated water or hair (Brave - pile of w@nk) and you win.
 
I know we've had a strong year for animation but what do you think should win it? For me it has to be Moana or Zootropolis.

Personally, I predict that 2 potential winners could be Kubo and the Two Strings or Zootopia/tropolis. Laika has been really close to winning in past years and this being their highest praised movie, I won't be surprised if it won. Zootopia, however, does have high chances as well but IMO Kubo's storytelling and cinematography are much superior. But of course that is subjective.

As for what Gavin said, I agree. I personally have more respect to National Board of Review when it comes to judging animation than anyone else.
 
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Finally saw Fantastic Beasts and suprised myself by really enjoying it. I was expecting it to be really crap after all the downvotes on here but it was good fun and much, much darker than I imagined - in a similar vein to the original films. I didn't find the simple plot to be a problem really as it was more an introduction of a film and gave us a chance to just absorb the atmosphere and depth of this new expansion to the HP universe. Yes there was an overemphasis on CGI but as mythical creatures were the main premise of the film I'll let it slide.

My main criticism though was with Graves who could have been a much more fleshed-out badie and who didn't really have a backstory. So many qns. He knew about the boy but not about his sister? Couldn't he have done a reveal spell to find out which kid had magic? Also, how did Tina come to meet the family? I assmued for ages she was another sister. Anyway, I was sold on most of the other characters. Even if Newt was far too Dr Who than was good for him.

I loved the fact the film wasn't sugar-coated. Spoilers coming up.
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That the kid didn't make it and that the lovers didn't get to together (sort of). And all the Salem stuff and the distrust going on. Such a great time period to set it in with the muggle (sorry no-maj) war and Grindlewald and the general sense of mistrust prevailing over everything. I love how Rowling always tries to install a good moral to the kids - acceptance, not hiding who you are etc., fear in the US that draws parallels with the present day. The film made you question more of the normal HP universe we all know and love. Should wizards still keep muggles in the dark after all this time? It's like Hermione and SPEW all over again. Rowling isn't afraid to make a flawed fantasy and that's what makes it so believable and keeps us coming back for more.

OK, so it wasn't as good as the original films but I enjoyed it and can't wait for the next one :)
 
Moana (in some countries including Netherlands, she's called Vaiana, which I think is a nicer name)
It's seems that I'm finally starting to love Disney. No more predictable stories, flat characters and forced romance. Their new films are absolutely brilliant and Moana is no exception. I still love Frozen and Tangled a bit more, but this is definitely of the same quality. I just feel that it didn't have the same effect on me as watching Frozen and Tangled for the first time in cinema. It didn't have the same spark of magic for me, but it's still one of my favourite Disney films. I've always preferred Pixar over Disney (I know they are the same now but I still differentiate between the two). However, after Toy Story 3 (2010) Pixar hasn't released a top notch film anymore, while Disney made Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia and Moana. Seems like the tables have turned.

I love how they really manage to get female characters right nowadays. After watching Beauty and the Beast recently, I just realised how boring Belle actually was compared to the likes of Rapunzel, Elsa and Anna. Moana is by far the star of the film and is really up there with the aforementioned characters. I loved her so much. The rest of the characters aren't quite up there for me though, and that's probably why I didn't fall in love with it as much as Frozen and Tangled. The chicken was funny at first but got irrelevant later. As far as comic relief characters go, Olaf and Maximus/Pascal are far more memorable and likable. Maui was pretty cool but still not really a character that I was amazed with. As far as the music goes, it didn't immediately strike me as much as Frozen and Tangled did, except for "How Far I'll Go" which was really beautiful. Might grow on me when I listen to the soundtrack more though. In terms of visuals it's by far the most gorgeous animated film I've ever seen. Utterly mindblowing. Overall, one of my fave films of the year and one of the better Disney films, but not my absolute top favourite.

4/5
 
Arrival
Really loved it. Not nearly as complicated as I thought, and while it does have a bunch of plotholes I enjoyed the story and concept. The atmosphere and soundtrack were fantastic as well. Amy Adams is one of my favourite actresses and she did a great job in this film (as always). 4/5

Hell or High Water

A very enjoyable modern western film with a great cast. It might not have the most revolutionary and original story, but the acting, the way it was presented and the fantastic characters made this a really good film. Blast from start to finish. 4/5

Doctor Strange

The visuals were fantastic but that's about it. I liked the first half (though it's a tad rushed), but the second half is the usual ridiculous Marvel flash over substance crap with a cliché story, over the top action and flat characters. It was a decent watch, better than the majority of Marvel films, but still unremarkable overall. 2/5

Sing

It's an adorable animated film which entertains during its nearly 2 hour length. Nothing more can be said about it really. 3/5

Nocturnal Animals

A very dark and intense film. One of my favourites of the year for sure. I really love the concept and the art direction of the whole thing. It's not a film for everybody though, as it makes you feel really uneasy, tense and miserable the entire duration of the film. Did I mention Amy Adams is fab? 4/5

Brimstone

Directed by a Dutchman, which is usually a sign that the film is going to be crap. I saw it during the sneak preview as the film will not be released until next month. What a surprise though. It was excellent. Probably the best example of a love/hate film as half of the people walked away, and the other half just held their breath until the end and watched the entire thing with fascination. It makes Nocturnal Animals seem like a feel-good film. It's so extremely dark, heart-wrenching and cruel. Not really in a gory way, more in terms of what some of the characters have to go through. The writing and acting is spot on though, and I'm sure this film will haunt my thoughts for quite a while. 4/5

So far my fave films of 2016 (in no order):
Hacksaw Ridge
Nocturnal Animals
Vaiana
Brimstone
Arrival

With Zootopia as runner up. I'll see next week if La La Land is really that amazing...
 
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Hang on, you already have Sing? We don't get that till the end of Jan. What?

I missed out on High or Hell water, which is annoying, hopefully catch it on blu-ray/Netflix.
 
^ We've got Sing here as well. Don't really fancy it to be honest.

Office Christmas Party

I wasn't expecting much, and I was right. Despite a really good cast, it was really poor. Way too many jokes that just fell completely flat. Just badly written really.
 
Rogue One
I think many of us remember some things (characters, scenes, vehicles, etc) in Star Wars and think "that was awesome, but I wish they had shown more of it". Well, Rogue One is here to save the day. I hope I'm not too spoilery when I say that we get to see some "good old things" in action a lot more. We get to be on the ground on the receiving end of an X-wing strafe. Watch the terrifying AT-ATs up close again, wrecking stuff up as badly as they did on Hoth. We watch Star Destroyers in combat. We see how much of an unstoppable menace Darth Vader is in combat against non-Jedi opponents. And, most importantly I think, the Death Star. I'm a little unsure on whether the following paragraphs count as spoilers, so I'll put them in the appropriate tags just to be sure:

My one problem with A New Hope in retrospect is that the Death Star kind of comes and goes too quickly. We're introduced to it. We see it fire its weapon once. Then the rebels destroy it. Cue happy ending. Its presence doesn't feel that menacing. It's there to be destroyed, a Big Bad Thing set up so the heroes can blow it up at the end of the film. That one shot at Alderaan doesn't fully demonstrate its terrible power. It enters the stage, does its one trick, and is killed, exit stage right and fade into celebration scene.

Rogue One shows us an operational and fully armed Death Star doing its intended business. Zipping around the galaxy to punish insolence against the Empire. And we get how important it is for the rebels to destroy it.

It always seemed unlikely that the Empire would use the Death Star to blow up planets willy-nilly. In the long run, it wouldn't seem cost-effective to waste an entire planet's worth of resources by blowing them up. In Rogue One, we don't get any of the big planet-destroying shots, but we get a couple of demonstrations on a more modest scale - as in "killing the dinousaurs"-level impacts that removes entire cities and their hinterlands, but mostly leave the planet intact afterwards (though I'm pretty sure it would be rendered uninhabitable for many years because of atmospheric effects). In a setting as technologically advanced as Star Wars, any ol' terrorist could probably achieve the same level of destruction with a pair of old engines, an asteroid, and some elementary knowledge of orbital mechanics, but let's not dwell on that.

Rogue One portrays the Death Star as a weapon the Empire would be quite trigger-happy with, that they would use rather effectively to lay waste to rebelling areas without rendering the planet useless afterwards, and that would put a rather quick end to any rebellious notions if left unchecked. We see how the Rebel Alliance is so vulnerable to it too, that many of its sub-groups are on the brink of surrender, and that the Death Star would put a definite end to any serious opposition to the Empire. The operation to retrieve its blueprints is a hopeless ordeal that adds a sliver of hope to the fractured Alliance, and which plays very nicely into the rest of the movies.

All in all, Rogue One adds a lot of weight to throwaway phrases and elements in the original trilogy. It adds solid "anchors" to the ideas of the Death Star as a threat to be stopped at all costs, to Vader as a badass, to the Rebel Alliance as the definite underdogs, and the Empire as an unopposable force that is cementing its hold on the galaxy. It's a very worthwhile prequel to the first Star Wars trilogy, and will probably be mentioned among the better films in the franchise.

A solid 3/3 on my simplified rating scale. Worth a watch!
 
Hang on, you already have Sing? We don't get that till the end of Jan. What?

I missed out on High or Hell water, which is annoying, hopefully catch it on blu-ray/Netflix.
I 'love' how we already have Sing for a week, but won't be getting Hell or High Water till later in the month, while it's all completely vice-versa in the UK. Same goes for Nocturnal Animals. Thom said I should go watch it, since it just started showing (where he lives) when we were discussing it, but when I checked with my local movie theatre, I figured it was already gone. Annoying...
 
Office Christmas Party

This was ok. Had some fun moments, not nearly as funny as I would have liked but it was still a watchable film.


Rogue One

Watched this in LieMax last night. First third of the movie is terrible, it jumps about from place to place far too often, the score was a mess (and I love Giacchino) and the character building was a bit meh. I really didn't like the two main characters, I thought both of them were dull and uninteresting. However, once the group comes together the movie becomes a whole different beast, it's really fun, the visuals are stunning, score (while forgettable) gets better and the battle sequences are fantastic.

CGI Tarkin and Leia looked brilliant. I couldn't get over how much Tarkin there was actually, brilliant. The Darth Vader scene at the end is bloody brilliant, one of my favourite scenes of the year.

So despite a poor start I ended up really enjoying the film and I'll have to go see it again.
 
Rogue One. Starts with The Cell Of Cthulhu 583 out of 5. Brilliant ;)

Sent from my E6683 using Tapatalk
 
You what?

Sorry, starts as in "Jyn's adult part" with it. Jyn is in a holding cell with a creature that resembles a Cthuloid beastie :)

Okay, proper review... Rogue One
Where to even start with this? First of all, I'm with Peep. The film starts a complete mess. It's all over the place and is confusing. You don't now the characters (and let's face it, they're mostly bland so it's difficult anyway), it moves from one sci-fi planet location to another rapidly. They look different to a degree, but not enough. It's just messy. It doesn't help that the film also doesn't really start properly.
I can understand them dropping the traditional opening scroll. They want this to be an attached property, not part of the actual "franchise". However, dropping straight into the film and the NO intro music or anything? It starts with a wet squib. You get to meet some new characters you don't care about on a bland world and then - fizzle, new logo, poor new title music for two seconds and.... Onto more characters you never care about and more bland worlds ;)

I think it finds its feet on Jeddah. It settles enough for you to grasp the characters and the plot it's trying to force on you. I guess it finds its grove and the film becomes much better. It's absolutely a war film, "The Longest Day" that George Lucas never made because he wanted to do "Battle of Britain" instead. It doesn't resonate with the other films at all. They're all hero films where you know the players are invincible (to a degree). Here we have a realism and grittiness that is barren in the rest of the film canon (TFA eludes to it though).

If this was a film in a fresh universe though, it would be awful. The characters are mostly bland and forgettable (which is the Imperial pilot, which the rebel captain?). The planets just dust balls and devoid of character (guess it shaped the crew). The plot is convoluted and hints at more than it delivers, but you know what it could deliver would be dull (I'll read Catalyst at some point to confirm).

As a prequel to ANH, it's actually brilliant. The Star Wars universe (for all the dull bits) is also full of something wonderful. Jeddah in particular is awesome, but it's also good to see the military complexes - cementing a wide range of differences away from a Death Star or Hoth. It builds the background to A New Hope really well. We feel in ANH that the war has been going on for decades. However, it's a proper rag-tag insurgency and really brittle. It gives a much better idea of why the Death Star exists and what the change is that Lucas gives us with the disbanding of "the senate" in ANH and stuff. It just builds a wonderful background, as well as the direct links. Moving on from that...

As part of the complete extended canon universe...? It fits really well, but it feels forced (no pun intended). We see Mon Mothma struggling with controlling the rebellion which is a central core to the Aftermath books and also the new republic built in TFA. The film is very close in feel to the books set between the prequels and the original trilogy. In those books we see the blood and guts of the rebellion (usually splattered on corridors and dusty planets) along with the awesomeness of Vader and Tarkin. The film is VERY similar to the Battlefront book - which is what the film reminded me of - Star Wars Battlefront the game.

Highlights include K-2SO's dialogue which was a much needed light in the murky story. Whenever Chirrut Imwe was given some time (he wasn't given anywhere near enough). The epic space battle at the end - particularly the arrival at the end of it. Erm... Not much else. Attention to detail like the Storm Trooper doll.

Lowlights were the general plodding murkiness of it all and Vader giving his worst line since "NOOOOOOOOOOO!".

As a Star Wars fan, it's a brilliant service to the canon and the universe. 8/10.

As a film in its own right, it's not particularly entertaining in terms of plot or character. It doesn't have a great personality and it often either labours the plot, or jumps about too rapidly for you to keep up with what it's trying to achieve. 6/10
 
Rogue One
Ok so I thought the first third of it was kinda bad, pretty boring and seemed a bit all over the place. However, the climax was amazing and I absolutely loved it. One of my favorite, if not my favorite battle scene in a Star Wars movie. And Darth Vader going to town on those poor Rebels.... that was awesome and a ton of fun to watch. I never really thought of Darth Vader as intimidating, but holy crap that was awesome.
 
Rogue One

Boring, so so boring. I couldn't care less about the characters or what was happening. We already know that they get the plans, so where is the tension? The characters lack any personality; they all just say lines and act serious. I don't need every character to be like the funny robot, but none of them are even remotely interesting. For real, without googling it, what are all their names? If you can tell me, good job cause I don't **** know. Why should I care about any of them? Despite the amazing effects, I was just counting down the minutes to the ending because I don't care if these people die. The rebels get the plan; we know. Why was this even made (other than $$$)?!? At the very least, it has the look of a Star Wars movie. I liked some of the sets and, well, that's about it. It isn't as bad as the prequels at least, but even the prequels though had characters with personalities. Ugh, anyway, hopefully the next Star Wars film is better.
 
Sully
Just watched this for the first time yesterday. Being passionate about aviation, I was excited about this one. Of course, Tom Hanks did great, and my inner nerd got a little too creamy with the airplane visuals and how good they looked. I thought the "court hearing" scene was great and obviously the ditching scene was fantastic.
 
Watched a few films yesterday...

Started with Monster Trucks which is a silly family film. Good for what it is though and it moved along at a decent pace.

Why him? was ok, most jokes fall flat and there's a lot of scenes that go on far too long.

Passengers was ridiculous but enjoyable. The visuals were pretty great and I do like the cast.

Ended the day by watching Rogue One for a second time. I think I enjoyed it more this time and a lot of the problems weren't really bugging me.
 
Rogue One

I couldn't care less about the characters or what was happening. We already know that they get the plans, so where is the tension?

My feelings exactly. The writers could've given us some surprises or engaging characters during the story before the inevitable conclusion, but it was all so obvious and predictable. I didn't hate it by any means but it was very disappointing. How anyone can rate this higher than The Force Awakens, let alone any of the original trilogy films baffles me.

I wrote a more detailed review for the site I contribute to if anyone cares....
http://www.moviemuse.net/review-rogue-one/
 
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