#the slow dialogue was getting so goddamn annoying in every trailer/cinematic

[wp100]

also the Dark Heart Cinematic with Khadgar, Alleria and Jaina has amazing animation. The little details with the lip smacks, sighing, other lil noises they make when they speak. It looks and feels so natural!

and not to mention, they don't speak so slowly anymore. Oh my god that has bothered me since, like, Legion or BfA (Mostly Shadowlands-Dragonflight because I didn't play much of Legion and barely caught up with the story during BfA when I returned after focusing on high school).

It's just really well put together. Haven't felt this excited over a WoW cinematic in a very, very long time. Feels like the stakes are really high but at the same time it's like watching a little mini-series. Quick and to the point. Love this new direction they're going. Hopefully it stays like this throughout the Worldsoul Saga.

[scrawnydutchman]

Some Movies I like but Everyone Else Hates

Ah, here’s a fun topic. Everybody’s got opinions on this sort of thing. While the collective consciousness tends to deem some films as good and some films as bad like it really is as black and white as that, the fact is sometimes you can see value in something that nobody else can. And you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. You should never be ashamed of feeling like your money was well spent on a piece of entertainment. As well, these kinds of opinions, even the most disagreeable, I find to be the most refreshing because the arguments as to why these films are bad are so rinse and repeat you swear whoever was saying it was just reading some old review they found online. With all that said, here are some movies I love but everyone else hates.

1. Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

You saw the opening bumper; might as well get this one out first. Alright, so for most of the entries on this list I can kind of understand where they’re coming from. Sometimes these movies can be paced a certain way or can have obvious crutches or can straight up be VERY non sensical and annoying at times. As such, I find most peoples criticisms on these films to be firm but fair. But this movie . . . this movie got a bad rep for COMPLETELY illegitimate reasons. Yeah, you heard me. All I ever hear about this movie is “Oh, it’s not as good as the original movie. Oh, Gene Wilder is so much better! Oh, this REMAKE is so dumb! This is just a stupid REMAKE!”. I’ve got a little bit of news for the people who make this kind of baseless criticism, alright? You listening? Okay, here goes:

THIS. IS. NOT. A. REMAKE. OF. THE. GENE. WILDER. FILM.  IT IS AN ALTERNATE INTERPRETATION OF THE BOOK BY ROALD DAHL. THERE IS A HUGE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE!!

People always let their bias and their nostalgia blindness for the Gene Wilder movie cloud their judgement of Tim Burton’s swing at the classic tale, and it pisses me off. Get it out of your head: This movie is not trying to be the Gene Wilder film again. It never CLAIMED to want to be the Gene Wilder film again. It only ever set out to be it’s own thing; it’s own original take on the source material. And that’s completely fine. Because believe it or not, you can adapt a famous novel more than once and in more than one way. It’s a method that keeps timeless stories like Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland relevant in our culture in fact. So if you’re going to judge this movie, judge it by it’s own terms, not by what you want it to be and not by standards it didn’t set for itself. Beyond that, I also hear criticisms like Johnny Depp is terrible. He’s awkward, uncomfortable and seems like he lacks direction. But guess what? It’s actually closer to the book. I’m sorry it’s not just Gene Wilder again. A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE SOURCE MATERIAL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!! This movies bad rep is a product of the fact that people associate their knowledge of the story and characters more with the movies they’ve seen than with the source material they’ve taken from. I get it guys, nobody has the time to sit down and read a book anymore, but if you’re not going to do it than don’t talk about the proper interpretation of a story or character like you know what you’re talking about. 

I like this movie. I think it’s a solid retelling of the story. It hits the story beats it needs to hit and it’s very creative and stunning in both it’s visuals and musical score. I like some of the more experimental choices it makes like giving every bad kid a different genre/era of music to coincide their lesson. I also like how it uses the source material to give a different message from the book. This is another thing a lot of people had issue with, and to be fair with every interpretation it’s important to have some elements say the same for the sake of consistency. But listen; bottom line, if you want everything to be like the original book or the original movie, just go read the book or watch the original movie. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no point in interpreting a story again if you don’t have new territory to explore with it. 

2. Superman Returns

So I’ve commented on Superman Returns a number of times (I’ve even made a previous article called ‘Why Superman Returns is the Best Superman Movie’) so I’ll try to keep this brief without repeating myself TOO much. Yeah, I know this movie is slow paced. I know Superman doesn’t really fight anyone in this movie. I know it hinges a little too much on the Reeve legacy from time to time. But I have no regrets. Not only is this movie beautifully shot with some of the most stellar frame composition choices I’ve ever seen in a movie. Not only does the film very cleverly integrate practical and CGI effects like how they put Brandon Routh in a swimming tank and used his swimming movements as a reference for Supermans flying, giving him both the sense of weight AND sense of grace that you expect from the superpower. Not only is Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor the most entertaining part of this movie (kind of fitting that he played such a manipulative egotistical bastard in retrospect, eh?). Not only does it have awesomely suspenseful scenes like the incredible saving the airplane scene or the part where Superman gets shot in the eye and doesn’t even flinch. But bottom line: This movie gets Superman. Supermans whole character dilemma is that he struggles between his identity as a human and a kryptonian. He wants to live comfortably among people but in reality he always feels like he’s a stranger among strangers. This is made stronger by the fact that he left earth for a time after rumors that traces of Krypton came up and left without warning. When he came back empty handed, he realized the error of putting his past home before his present; there are people right now that he needs to be there for, whether they are Kryptonian or not. All this is displayed beautifully in great symbolism like how Clark’s ceiling is decorated with stars, one of which is read and stands out, FANTASTIC imagery like Superman floating above the planet listening in on the human race, and finally, my favorite quote in the movie. “You say that the world doesn’t need a savior, but everyday I hear somebody crying for one”. Granted the whole Supermans child thing never went anywhere and some parts like the Superman and Lois flying scene were blatant rehashes of the Reeve film, but overall I think this movie demonstrates the finest understanding of who Superman is in his cinematic history. In case you’re still not convinced; I have a favor to ask of you:

Watch the Reeve Superman movie. Then watch Man of Steel RIGHT after. Then watch Superman Returns. What you’ll find is a Reeve movie where Superman doesn’t hilariously break the logic of his own film to save the day, and a Man of Steel film where Superman actually PREVENTS major damage from happening rather than causes it. As for the pacing . . .for one reason or another the slowness of this film never bothered me.

3. The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Okay  .  . . . this is a very problematic movie. It’s plot is all over the place, some things about it are over the top silly, it tries to do too much at once and some of the dialogue is cliche as all hell. But you know what? I went into this movie at the theater wanting some good ol’ fashion web slinging action and that’s exactly what I got. I’m a simple man: I see a Spider-Man action scene, I like. Plus, I just really like a lot of the aesthetic choices this movie makes. Visually it’s a HUGE improvement over the first movie. The colours pop a lot more, the action is easier to make out and really appreciate, it doesn’t have as many dull tones. It LOOKS like a Spider-Man comic. the first movie seemed too unsaturated for me and took place at night a little too often. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the spidey costume in that (though i always appreciate honest experimentation). A lot of people had issues with certain things like the dubstep Electro theme, and yeah while I admit it’s VERY goofy (especially the “he hates-a me” line) i think the choice to give Electro a dubstep theme was pretty neat. Plus I just liked the way Electro looked in general. It was a very different take on how lightning looks and while it may not technically be accurate I think it was ultimately a better choice than if they just want to making it look like real lightning. That’s something we’ve seen done a million times. People also had an issue with how little the Rhino was in it (and yes, I will say the trailer was blatant false advertising) but really I’d rather have this than just have him appear in basically the same amount of time and then immediately die or something. It’s too bad that sequel never came.  Really, a lot of this movies problems are more things about the Spider-Man universe that have stuck around than issues with the movie itself. And at the end of the day it’s no more ridiculous than any of the Raimi movies. It’s just a dumb romp that even with all it’s shortcomings delivered what I was hoping for.