With 48 FPS, You Get Eggroll

Merry Christmas again, everyone. What a blast I had seeing The Desolation of Smaug with my brother and sister-in-law, but keeping secret that it was my fourth viewing and my special interest in the movie.  They were OK with the movie. Both had watched AUJ in preparation, which has been playing on HBO all week: they didn’t like that at all.

Since there are no good restaurants near the theater showing the film in 48 FPS, we flipped our plans and decided to see the film first and return back to their apartment for some Chinese food which we ordered in. Eggrolls included. ( My brother and I love them – we have no shame, and indulge in eating them our family way, which is to empty out the filling and eat it separately, using the crispy roll to push the cabbage onto a fork. What can I say? It’s the way we do it.) I gave Thorin ( above) the choice of eating it like finger food or the right way.

Anyway, the family wasn’t really into the movie that much, and if my SIL has a secret crush on Richard Armitage, she’s keeping it close and throwing Orlando Bloom into the mix as a red herring. I guess she really was interested in seeing a film in HFR. She has a film background of sorts, so I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.

None of us liked the 48 FPS.

I thought it was both too real and too phony. At times, when there were no special effects or fight scenes going on, it reminded me of watching live TV, or, as many others have said, a soap opera. It’s something I might get used to a like in the future, but here, I found it disconcerting. It reminded me of my first few times watching HD TV.

Conversely, in some of the action scenes, I thought it looked unreal. I had the sensation that some of the images were cut outs, a problem I sometimes have with 3D as well. The differences between the screen looking too real and too fantastical threw me off because I got the feeling I was watching different films at different times. I think it if it were my first viewing, I might have been very dissatisfied. But it was a little easier to follow the action, especially in Mirkwood.

I still owe myself at least one viewing in regular old fashioned 2D, no IMAX.

All in all it was a fun day – a jolly Jewish Christmas. Hope yours was as well. From what I’m reading on blogs and twitter, it seems like everyone got into the spirit.