Favorite Films

[talonmalon333]

By the way, Avaitor, I vaguely remember you once saying that you saw Dancer in the Dark. Is that correct? What'd you think if so?

Lars Von Trier is a nutjob.

So does that mean good or bad?

[Avaitor]

By the way, Avaitor, I vaguely remember you once saying that you saw Dancer in the Dark. Is that correct? What'd you think if so?

Lars Von Trier is a nutjob.

So does that mean good or bad?

Well, there's plenty of good. I like the music, and even though it's obvious to see why handheld musicals aren't much of a thing, the camerawork is well done. But the story's too weirdly dark for my liking.

[talonmalon333]

It's a very odd film and, in many ways, is hard to take 100% seriously. But I think Bjork gave a great performance, and the movie had some very strong moments.

[Avaitor]

Officially have my choice for best film of 2013- Before Midnight

Best trilogy ever made.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I thought that I'd rank the Harry Potter films from favorite to least favorite. My rankings for the books would be slightly different, but I'm just doing the films for now:

1. Chamber of Secrets
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Deathly Hallows Part II
4. Half-Blood Prince
5. Prisoner of Azkaban
6. Deathly Hallows Part I
7. Order of the Phoenix
8. Sorcerer's Stone

Now, I like all of these movies to dome degree, so I don't have anything against any of them. That said, SS has the circumstance of being the first film, and thus it was a work in progress for all of the actors to come into their roles. It was also set-up for the rest of the series. Phoenix was also a noble effort, but had the impossibly hard task of condensing an 870 page book into a single film, and naturally felt way too rushed.

Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire are my favorites because of the mystery and puzzle solving elements, respectively.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Chamber of Secrets is my favorite of the films as well. I've always been a bit hard on Goblet of Fire, though, because I thought they took out/changed too much from the book and I was disappointed by that as a kid.

My personal rankings for the films would be:

1. Chamber of Secrets
2. Deathly Hallows Part II
3. Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Deathly Hallows Part I
5. Goblet of Fire
6. Half-Blood Prince
7. Sorcerer's Stone
8. Order of the Phoenix

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Considering that Goblet of Fire is my favorite book in the series, I thought they did a good job of condensing a long book into a single film while keeping faithful to all of the key/major moments from the book. I'd rather accept a lot of minor changes to still keep the movie feeling well-paced and coherent, as opposed to just rushing through almost every scene like Order of the Phoenix did. I think they did as good of a job as could possibly be done with adapting that book, without actually splitting it into 2 separate films.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just for the hell of it, here's my book order:

1. Goblet of Fire
2. Order of the Phoenix
3. Chamber of Secrets
4. Deathly Hallows
5. Half-Blood Prince
6. Sorcerer's Stone
7. Prisoner of Azkaban

[LumRanmaYasha]

Considering that Goblet of Fire is my favorite book in the series, I thought they did a good job of condensing a long book into a single film while keeping faithful to all of the key/major moments from the book. I'd rather accept a lot of minor changes to still keep the movie feeling well-paced and coherent, as opposed to just rushing through almost every scene like Order of the Phoenix did. I think they did as good of a job as could possibly be done with adapting that book, without actually splitting it into 2 separate films.

Yeah, that's true. Given their restrictions, they did the best to work the story into a solid narrative for a film, and they did succeed. I just liked the book much better, though.

My book rankings would be:

1. Goblet of Fire
2. Order of the Phoenix
3. Chamber of Secrets
4. Deathly Hallows
5. Prisoner of Azkaban
6. Sorcerer's Stone
7. Half-Blood Prince

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Looks like our book lists are pretty close.

[talonmalon333]

The Harry Potter movies aired on television today. Did that inspire you to rank them? Or is it just a coincidence?

I personally think the two parts of Deathly Hallows were the best movies. It was just a really great idea to split the story into two films and made it that much stronger for me. After that, I actually like the first two movies, Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. For one, I think they lost the least amount of material by becoming film, due simply to their shorter length. Also, I feel like they just had an atmosphere to them that wasn't as present in the later movies, a sense of wonder and magic to the world of Hogwarts.

Just what I think. I'm not really a huge fan of the Harry Potter film series, but I did like seeing them in theaters.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I already explained how I feel that Sorcerer's Stone, while accurate to the book, was still a bit wonky due to the actors needing time to adjust to their roles. They all came into their own by the second film, and since it was the 2nd shortest boom, it was still simple enough to adapt into film without having to cut too much material out.

I like both Deathly Hallows films, but they were based on a book that was never my favorite in the series. Don't get me wrong, it's a great conclusion to the franchise, but it's not something that I would continuously go back to as I would for my favorite books in the series. Also, Part I feels rather slow-paced and kind of unsatisfying if viewed as a solo film.

As actual adaptations, those middle films are a bit more interesting, at the very least, since they are forced to make more alterations, and while not as great as the novels, they are also what I tend to re-watch more as films since they also have those differences to them. I of course still like Chamber of Secrets the best because it's a great mystery story, which I love, but I honestly do love the middle films, for the most part, because they actually don't play it 100% safe and instead have differences to them that make them interesting to watch even if you have already read the book! whereas with the first and last 2 films, you know exactly what is going to happen all the time, which sort of diminishes any enjoyment you could get from seeing something new unfold, that you didn't already expect.

And as someone who prefers the books, I still think it's folly to dismiss the movies as just OK. They clearly put in a ton of effort into each one not only to at least stay true to the spirit of the books, but to make it a great fantasy film series in its own right, and I would gladly say that it's my 2nd favorite fantasy series in film, next to TLOTR (unless you count the original Star Wars trilogy as fantasy rather than Sci-Fi). That is to say that comparing the film series to other actual films, rather than the novels, I haven't personally seen much competition for it, myself.

[talonmalon333]

I didn't mean to make it look like they are just okay. I just feel like the sacrifices made in turning the books into movies keep them from reaching the level of greatness of the books. Order of the Phoenix in particular lost something, considering that it's the shortest of the movies despite being, if I remember correctly, the longest book. They are all good movies, I just don't love them.

As for best fantasy film series', I'd have to think about the competition. It's better than the Narnia films, which came out around the same time as Harry Potter.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Wow, I thought I was the only one who thought the Goblet of Fire was the best one.

Book order:

1. Goblet of Fire
2. Prisoner of Azkaban
3. Order of the Phoenix
4. Deathly Hallows
5. Philosopher's Stone
6. Chamber of Secrets
7. Half-Blood Prince (Good elements, but it just dragged)

Movie order:

1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Deathly Hallows Part II
3. Chamber of Secrets
4. Order of the Phoenix
5. Goblet of Fire
6. Half-Blood Prince
7. Philosopher's Stone
8. Deathly Hallows Part I (My least favorite parts of the book given a movie treatment, and they pointlessly deleted some important plot related scenes.)

And yes, I am a fan of the series. I admit it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Half-Blood Prince is most people's least favorite, but I always felt that it gets a bad rep. The Tom Riddle flash-backs pretty much make the book, for me. It takes Voldemort, who at this point was mostly just a 1-dimensional villain with only hits of depth to his persona, and gives him a backstory with tons of nuance to it.

Meanwhile, Prisoner of Azkaban seems to be a fan favorite, and I liked both the book and movie just fine, myself. I just never particularly enjoyed it on the same level that everyone else did, for whatever reason. It gave us awesome new characters in Remus Lupin and Sirius Black (who are my favorite and 2nd favorite Harry Potter character, respectively), but a lot of the story felt kind of uneventful to me, until the end.

I never saw a shame in admitting fandom of the Harry Potter series. Yes, it will always have it's naysayers (Doug Walker being the most popular of them just because he's the Nostalgia Critic), but the series is so widely regarded for a good reason, whether anyone is willing to accept that or not.

Wow, I thought I was the only one who thought the Goblet of Fire was the best one.

From what I can tell, it's held in pretty high regard by most fans (the book, not the movie, of course). I love it, myself. It's a tournament and a mystery in one, which are two of my favorite things ever.