main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

The 3D Revolution: Scorsese's "Hugo" Wins Golden Globe for Best Director

Discussion in 'Archive: The Amphitheatre' started by Jabbadabbado, Mar 12, 2010.

  1. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    From the AV Club:

    Signs of life in the 3rd dimension: 13 recent films that show 3-D shouldn?t die
    by Erik Adams, Sam Adams, Steven Hyden, Noel Murray, Keith Phipps, Nathan Rabin, and Scott Tobias September 26, 2011

    1. Coraline (2009)

    "It?s hard to think of a more germane use of 3-D than stop-motion animation. The environments already exist in three dimensions, and yet they?re artificial enough to avoid pesky comparisons with the real world. For Coraline, director Henry Selick captured his elegantly crafted puppets in all their tactile glory, using variations in depth of field to delineate the distinction between the cramped confines of the real world and the endless space ruled by the seductive Other Mother. Selick is almost alone in thinking of 3-D not as a gimmick or simply a device to suck in the audience, but as a storytelling tool, adding depth in more sense than one."

     
  2. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    2. Avatar (2009)

    "Opinions on James Cameron?s landmark film varied in direct proportion to the technological advancement of the screening: Those unlucky enough to see it in two paltry dimensions emerged griping about the sub-par dialogue and heavy-handed subtext, while viewers treated to the full IMAX 3-D experience could merely drool, starry-eyed, at the lush beauty of the planet Pandora. Between Cameron?s custom-built 3-D cameras and the film?s advances in performance-capture technology, Avatar created a fantasy as pervasive and enticing as any ever made, and its success paved the way for every 3-D movie?the great as well as the mediocre?that followed in its wake."
     
  3. Winged_Jedi

    Winged_Jedi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2003
    Smells of a false dichotomy. You can see the IMAX 3-D, enjoy the visuals, and still come out "griping about the sub-par dialogue and heavy-handed subtext". As I did.
     
  4. Mastadge

    Mastadge Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 4, 1999
    QFT. The special effects mostly looked like special effects, in 2D or 3D, and the movie was just as trite either way. And I enjoyed the action scenes just as much in both formats, too.

    Surprisingly, one of the few films I've seen to actually make reasonable use of 3D was My Bloody Valentine. Too bad a knack for the format couldn't replace everything else that went wrong in that movie!
     
  5. Jabbadabbado

    Jabbadabbado Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 1999
    The movie is lush and beautiful, and I admit I was a big fan when I first saw it ****in 3D!!!****, but it really doesn't hold up well. I watched it for a third time a few months ago and, well, it bored me silly. I think it helped me that I saw it for the first time dubbed into German, and since German is my weaker language, it correspondingly made the dialogue seem better.

    Some people are going to be astonished about the drop in box office from Avatar 1 to Avatar 2. It may still make $900 + million worldwide, but 2 movies do that every year now.
     
  6. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    3. Meet The Robinsons (2007)

    "There?s nothing special about the 2007 Disney animated movie Meet The Robinsons, a pleasing, forgettable time-waster that combines Pixar?s crisp character design with a spazzy comic rhythm more familiar to Nickelodeon. In 2-D, it?s little more than 95 minutes of shelter from an afternoon rain shower. But the timing is key: Back in 2007, movie theaters across the country were just getting equipped with digital projection systems, and the 3-D craze was in its infancy. As a trial balloon for the new technology, Meet The Robinsons was a marvel, demonstrating the argument that the new 3-D was not about comin?-at-ya moments, but rather creating a full, immersive cinematic environment. The film?s candy-colored future world of transport tubes and flying cars?a more functional version of Futurama, basically?seems generic in one format, dazzling in another."
     
  7. The2ndQuest

    The2ndQuest Tri-Mod With a Mouth star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Avatar 2 will have a decline from the first (it's unreasonable otherwise) but I don't think it will be as big as some people might predict. Avatar's primary criticism was the "Dances With Wolves in Space" story at it's core. Well, that's done now, and Cameron's going to have to do something different next time around, so if the sequel is based around something less obviously familiar I think that may counter any disinterest lingering in those who disliked that facet o the original.
     
  8. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    4-5. My Bloody Valentine/Drive Angry (2009/2011)

    "In his push for 3-D to become not only the dominant format, but the only format in which movies are released, James Cameron has cautioned against the ?stupid 3-D tricks that people used to think are good.? Well, Mr. Cameron, director Patrick Lussier and his partner, screenwriter Todd Farmer, have four middle fingers raised in your direction. My Bloody Valentine and Drive Angry are shameless genre retreads, two bellyfuls of empty calories that rely on visceral impact over just about any other consideration. To that end, Lussier literally throws everything he can at the audience: pickaxes, muscle cars, decapitated heads, explosions, shotgun barrels, and in My Bloody Valentine, a cop?s bushy mustache. No doubt Lussier and Farmer?s Ball-And-Paddle will complete the trilogy."
     
  9. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    6. U2 3D (2008)

    "While U2 3D doesn?t capture the band at a particularly important time in its history?the mid-?00s ?Vertigo? tour was merely another excuse for Bono to make another $100 million or so?the film?s 3-D technology is pretty spectacular. Not only does it replicate the sensation of being in a concert audience and watching a band live onstage, it?s possibly better than that. After all, you?d have to take out another mortgage to get close enough to pluck The Edge?s nose hairs, but it feels like you?re right there while watching U2 3D. The film is such an immersive experience that U2 might want to discourage fans from seeing it, lest they pick watching the movie over seeing the real thing."
     
  10. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    I saw this, it really was pretty amazing. Shame they couldn't have filmed it on the 360 tour.
     
  11. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    7. Jackass 3D (2010)

    "3-D technology probably wasn?t created specifically to send dildos, vomit, and feces flying at audiences in three dimensions. Probably. Yet there?s a method to the madness of using advanced technology to enhance the experience of, say, a dude getting hit in the nuts with a T-ball in Jackass 3-D. Much of Jackass? appeal lies in the literally bruising physicality of its stunts; the franchise aims for empathetic cries of ?ouch? as much as laughs. While male viewers would reflexively guard their crotches even if the Jackasses were getting hit in the nuts in mere 2D, the trendy technology adds a whole new level of impact to the shenanigans, though it?s only a factor in a handful of setpieces."
     
  12. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    8. Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

    "For his documentary Cave Of Forgotten Dreams, director Werner Herzog gained access to the world?s most exclusive art gallery: The Chauvet Cave in Southern France, home to extraordinary cave paintings that have been geologically preserved for nearly 30,000 years. Due to concerns over deterioration from human contact, the French government so severely restricts access to the cave that only a handful of scientists, archaeologists, and other researchers have seen it. Herzog and a small crew were granted limited access?four hours per day for one week?and his choice to shoot it in 3-D gives audiences a sense of space and reinforces Herzog?s point about the paintings showing dynamism and movement, like proto-cinema. He also screws around with the format in a hilarious sequence where he demonstrates ancient weaponry."
     
  13. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    9. How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

    "How To Train Your Dragon is an example of how 3-D, when done right, can make a terrific film even better. Dragon already has a strong, emotionally gripping story and appealing animation, but when the film takes to the air, its flying sequences look stunning in 3-D. It?ll likely live on for years as a home-viewing favorite, where most of its charms will remain intact. But kids (and grown-ups) who caught it in theaters will remember it as an invitation to soar."

     
  14. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    10. Twixt (2011)

    'With his last three films?Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and now Twixt?director Francis Ford Coppola has turned to independent productions as an opportunity to experiment with new techniques and reinvent himself as a filmmaker. By far the silliest of the three, the soon-to-be-released Twixt reaches back to his Roger Corman days?and reaches back further in allusions to William Castle, Nosferatu, and many others?to use a cheesy horror-mystery about a writer (Val Kilmer) in a haunted town as a means to smuggle across a multi-layered personal essay. Among the director?s more whimsical touches is the intermittent use of 3-D: Rather than shooting the entire movie in the format, Coppola cues the audience to put on and take off their glasses through a graphic effect of a pair of glasses swooping on and off the screen. He reserves it for two sequences near the end, but he makes them count, from a dash up a seven-faced clock tower to harrowing shots of the moon-faced Kilmer in profile.'
     
  15. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    11. Pina (2011)

    "Before avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch died, she was collaborating with director Wim Wenders on a 3-D performance film. At the urging of Bausch?s troupe, Wenders continued with the project, turning it into a tribute to Bausch by interspersing performance footage with documentary reminiscences. Pina is set for release later in 2011. Its dance pieces are stunning, making sometimes-visionary use of the 3-D technology, treating the frame like a stage containing multiple planes of action. It helps that Bausch?s choreography so often involves adding obstacles to the dance floor?dirt, for example, or a huge rock, or pouring water?and that Wenders matches his late collaborator by shooting some of the shorter dances outdoors, in locations where nature flows, and the dancers are in the way. Given Bausch?s fascination with dancers exploring cluttered spaces, it?s only right that Pina was filmed in a format that shows those spaces as they appear to the artists moving through them."
     
  16. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    12. Piranha 3D (2010)

    "Where My Bloody Valentine and Drive Angry offer fast-food-like 3-D thrills, Piranha 3D is more like a bellyful of gas-station pork-rinds. It?s a shameless explosion of sex and violence that gives the audience all the gratuitousness it came for, then keeps shoveling it on until it starts to look less like a cheap exploitation film than like some kind of weird art installation. An attack on some spring-break beachgoers just keeps going until it starts to rival the opening of Saving Private Ryan for gore and discomfort. Director Alexandre Aja uses 3-D effects with shameless glee, shoving every image?be it blood, dismembered body parts, or a nude swimming sequence in which the participants stay underwater much longer than humanly possible?in the audience?s collective face. It?s part horror film, part comedy, part endurance test made all the more intense by the 3-D effects and glasses-induced claustrophobia."
     
  17. Mastadge

    Mastadge Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 4, 1999
    So . . . 3D shouldn't die because it can show us 3D boobs? Might I suggest that (1) there are better ways to experience the depth of boobs and (2) that a technology has been appropriated for the purposes of titillation is meaningless because, really, in what I guess is a corollary to Rule 34 . . . what technology hasn't?
     
  18. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Cave of Forgotten Dreams was supposed to be really good and Pina sounds incredibly interesting too. What this means is that a genius, like Herzog or Wenders, can actually use 3-D to good effect and that no one else really can. I knew that already. 3-D perhaps shouldn't die, but neither should it be applied to everything under the sun.
     
  19. Nevermind

    Nevermind Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 14, 2001
    13. Up (2009)

    "Some feared Pixar was jumping the shark when it announced that Up would be its first film presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The Pixar studio had staked its reputation on never selling character and story short for cheap visual tricks, but the promise of computer-animated Ed Asner comin? at ya in his floating house portended the end of that ?substance over style? tradition. Fortunately, Up?s three-dimensional elements are largely environmental in nature, providing a stark contrast between the crowded urban landscape of the film?s early scenes and the wide, wide open spaces of its final destination: the fictional South American eden of Paradise Falls. Based on the tepui mesas of Venezuela, the 3-D Paradise Falls scenery is immersive and sumptuous in ways bested only by Avatar, with backdrops that seemingly go on forever. The big-screen illusions detract nothing from the story of an elderly man attempting to fulfill his late wife?s greatest ambition; as an added bonus, nobody can tell how much you?re crying at the film?s bittersweet prologue when you?re wearing 3-D glasses."
     
  20. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004


    The best 3 D movie I've ever seen is Martin Scorcese's Hugo. I urge anyone who has any desire to see this film
    to see it soon while it's still playing on 3 D screens. It just won't be the same on DVD or Blu Ray.

    Here's an interesting clip:

    James Cameron and Martin Scorcese discuss Hugo and 3 D

    Scorcese integrates the 3 D into the film so that it serves and complements the story. Brilliant.
     
  21. ApolloSmileGirl

    ApolloSmileGirl Jedi Knight star 8

    Registered:
    Jun 18, 2004
    I saw Lion King 3D a few weeks ago, and thought it was an amazing conversion of one of my favorite Disney films. I'm also very much looking forward to Episode 1 in 3D.

    Tron Legacy has probably been my favourite recent 3D release though.
     
  22. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004
    I saw Lion King 3D a few weeks ago, and thought it was an amazing conversion of one of my favorite Disney films. I'm also very much looking forward to Episode 1 in 3D.

    When I saw Hugo, they had a trailer for the Phantom Menace in 3 D and it looked pretty good.

    It looks as though the time and effort Lucas and his team spent in the conversion process paid off.
     
  23. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Well, at least now the characters will be technically three-dimensional.
     
  24. JohnWesleyDowney

    JohnWesleyDowney Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2004
    I knew sooner or later someone would say something like that. ;)

    In Hugo, the characters are DEFINITELY 3 dimensional. Some of them are fictional but they mingle with real life historical figures, such as George Melies.
     
  25. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    I've said since this whole hoodoo began that I wouldn't pass judgement on 3D until I'd seen a real master filmmaker use it in some capacity.

    Having seen Spielberg's use of it in The Adventures of Tintin I've warmed to it, since he actually used it in a way everyone thinks other people are using it, but aren't (to augment the design, blocking, lighting, et cetera).

    But the prospect of seeing what Scorsese and Robert Richardson can do with it is certainly exciting. Doesn't even have a release date here yet, though.