Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler So what are you watching tonight?

Rented 'Surrogates' BD with Bruce Willis.

We rather liked it. Decent story with some good sound moments...

TAM

Went to Victoria for my daughter's birthday that included taking in the latest 3D StarTrek movie at a state-of-the-art Silver City Cinema. I've not been to a big theater for a while plus it was my first 3D experience.

Story Line - My wife & daughter are 'trekkies' & they both were impressed - better than expected. I enjoyed it also.

3D - It was OK - but I'm not sold. I found that there were a lot of visual anomalies - lens flares & reflections throughout the movie that were distracting to me. Furthermore, when a subject (talking head) is focused sharply on the screen, the background, & more annoyingly, objects in the foreground were often highly out of focus. The eye doesn't work that way outside of about 10'. That again was very distracting to me.

Sound - Huge sound stage of course; however, I found it overly loud & extremely harsh (hard, bright?), especially in the action scenes. Bass was pleasing & tactile but I thought that male dialogue was a bit too deep & chesty at times. It seemed to me that their sound system was being driven into compression especially in the high end. Afterwards, my hearing was affected for some time.

Anyway, it was interesting & mostly enjoyable. In my HT, I couldn't live with that volume (I normally use -10 Db) nor the harshness of the sound. I will rent the BD in 2D to see how that compares & I'll be looking for focus, reflections & comparing the sound of course...

TAM

Stoker

I've been wanting to watch this for a while. I really like the director, and Emily Wells had a prominent song in the soundtrack (seen in a creepy music video with scenes from the movie here), so I was pretty excited.

I don't usually go for creepy movies, but even just visually, I knew it was going to be something to see, and it was. The composition of the shots and just the incredible detail will make you love your HDTV. The story... not really so much depth or impact, but it was a decent first attempt by Wentworth Miller. He doesn't seem to have any other writing credits, instead being known as an actor on Prison Break, which I've never seen. Such a strange project to come together.

Park Chan-wook, the director, made his biggest impact over here with Oldboy, part of his Vengeance Trilogy, of which I still need to watch the other two. If you ever want to watch a movie with a twisted storyline, it fits the bill. As for Stoker, the filmmaking itself has been honed and polished since then, but the story doesn't really compete. I look forward to working through more of his filmography.

Oh, and the audio was phenomenal, too. The main character is more sensitive to sounds than most people, so a lot of the little ambient sounds are louder than normal to reflect that. I would recommend the movie simply for the technical aspects.

Upside Down 3D

Good movie I thought. Quite imaginative and unique. A good blend of Drama, Fantasy and Romance. Not a lot of good 3D effects, but it did enhance in areas that needed it. Lots of good visuals in this movie.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D

I liked it. Some gore earned it a horror rating. The woman that was hard to kill in the 3rd X-men movie was a witch that was hard to kill in this movie. Her legacy lives on. The 3d effects were much better than most movies. Highly recommended.

42

I watched this the other night and thought it was pretty good. I didn't really know anything about Jackie Robinson, never having paid attention to sports.

House at the End of the Street

I'll admit I watched this one just because of Jennifer Lawrence. It was so-so. I'm not a big horror/thriller guy.

Evil Dead (2013)

I'd seen it in the theater, and it made me just as uncomfortable the second time around. The writing isn't the greatest, especially when it comes to the characters, but it serves its purpose well enough. The director knows how to craft a motion picture that gets under your skin. I'm glad the creepiness is offset a little bit by the end. Again, I'm not a big horror guy, but I thought they did a good job keeping you invested and revolted at the same time.

Watched a concert from 2000 last night, The Corrs, live in London, if you enjoy traditional Irish music with a rock/pop flavour this Family based group is exceptional. Followed it up with an Alan Parker film, the Commitments, one of my favorite films of all time.
/Jeff

Yeah, I've got one of their discs. They're fun.

I love The Commitments. Great film.

Rented a couple of Blu-Rays last weekend:

Oblivion - decent sci-fi with beautiful visuals - filmed in Iceland & in June Lake in the mtns of California. Audio was state of the art as well. I found that the story line was hard to follow, probably because I'm officially now a feeble minded Old Phart.

OZ - Probably the most colourful & beautiful movie that I've seen in a long time. My new Sony LCD just glowed happily throughout. Quite a good story after a slow start with some very startling audio effects. Well worth watching...

TAM