Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Die Hard 5

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-17-2013, 04:27 PM:

Disclaimer, I haven't seen this yet, but I had a feeling it would suck when I found out it was flat. (I can't think of a good flat action movie, ever.) I have seen a number of humorous reviews though, my favorite (and surprisingly not written by John Wilson) is:

quote:
Die Hard 5 is the Crystal Skull of Die Hard movies.

So those of you who have seen it, do tell.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-17-2013, 05:15 PM:

Flat = bad
Rated R = good

So maybe it balances out? I haven't seen it yet either.

(Why in the world is it flat?!)

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-17-2013, 05:52 PM:

quote:
(Why in the world is it flat?!)

I guess because of the Digital IMAX release, combined with the lack of sophistication to create a version for both aspect ratios.

The movie is what you can expect from a Die Hard sequel. Almost non-stop over-the-top action (impossible car chases, explosions, helicopters, more explosions, more helicopters, etc.), some more or less funny references to the past ones and a simple story. Good enough for popcorn...

I personally liked this one a bit more than the last one, probably because it didn't have that much of that hacker-bullshit in it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-17-2013, 05:54 PM:

IMAX needs to go away. They are nothing special anymore and if that theory is correct, they are now fucking up movies by trying to get people to shoot flat. They play the same DCPs and the whole thing is a scam anyway. Just like how THX got to be in the end, they'll put their name on anything for a buck.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-17-2013, 08:21 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
IMAX needs to go away.

Yeah but if it's "working" (people are buying the tickets) it's not going anywhere. Too bad.

Posted by Connor Wilson (Member # 6088) on 02-17-2013, 08:29 PM:

CINEMA: AMC Tyson's Corner 16, McLean, VA
AUDITORIUM: 11
PRESENTATION: ETX, Dolby Atmos
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: A hell load of them. More on that below.
RATING: 1 (out of 10)

What happened? The ETX auditorium was okay back in 2011. The IMAX auditorium was crappy in early 2012, and got much better in late 2012. Now just recently, and I think in coincidence with the installation of Dolby Atmos in the auditorium, the ETX auditorium is crappy. Just because you installed the latest in sound technology doesn't make it sound better. It can still sound like poop without the correct tuning. This is the only Atmos auditorium in the D.C. area, and it sucks.

Now I haven't seen The Hobbit in Atmos, but let me tell you the Atmos trailer before Die Hard was cool. And it's followed by the movie, and the first thing I hear is the Fox fanfare seconds early before the logo began. This was fixed right away.

The movie was so shrill and loud that people were covering their ears. As for my first Atmos flick, I was supposed to hear sounds coming at me from all over the room, but instead I thought I was hearing mono. This was bar none, the worst presentation of a movie I've ever seen. Picture was fine, albeit grainy due to the use of film stock and 2K resolution. If there was one thing wrong with the picture, was that I was sitting to close to the screen, and the screen itself has this weird vertical line (that was always there in this auditorium) that possibly has to do with the screen itself, and not the projectors.

And as for the film being flat, what's wrong about that? Aliens was the only film in the Alien franchise to be in flat, as opposed to scope, and it was a very successful film, and that was pre-IMAX. Yes, it was possible the reason it was shot in flat was for fixed flat screens in premium auditoriums like ETX, RPX, XD, and IMAX. One premium auditorium I can think of with a fixed scope screen is Bow-Tie's BTX in Reston Town Center. That screen ran flat films before, and the only film I saw there was Skyfall, which was in scope, so I don't know how Bow-Tie compensates for flat films on their BTX screen.

Until they do a thorough EQ on the ETX screen, I won't be coming back to AMC Tyson's Corner 16.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-17-2013, 08:30 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
IMAX needs to go away. They are nothing special anymore and if that theory is correct, they are now fucking up movies by trying to get people to shoot flat. They play the same DCPs and the whole thing is a scam anyway. Just like how THX got to be in the end, they'll put their name on anything for a buck.

Off course, it might still be a "creative decision", although I highly doubt that.

I've noticed this on some other recent releases too. For example: The Avengers, Wrath of the Titans, MIB 3, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Those are all movies that you would've expected to be in scope and not in flat (or an aspect ratio close to flat). Just a handful of high profile releases were released in multiple aspect ratios (e.g. Prometheus and The Hobbit).

Regarding their DCPs; It doesn't really matter in most cases, but they do not use the same DCPs, at least not always. That's quite easy to prove: The Dark Knight Rises for example, switches between aspect ratios (scope for the 35mm footage and "IMAX flat/full screen" for the IMAX footage). It doesn't do that in the normal scope version, but it does for D-IMAX.
I also suspect they mess around with the sound, since their setup is somewhat different from your average 5.1 or 7.1 setup. And, I've also read somewhere that they "optimize" their 3D, so the picture contains more negative parallax (read: in your face effects). I don't know if that's somehow accomplished during playback, in the DCP or if that's just marketing BS although.

Still, I totally agree with you. IMAX has largely sold out, a lot like THX did and if studios start dictating aspect ratios because of D-IMAX, that's a bad thing. I want scope for my action movies please.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-17-2013, 08:41 PM:

Sad thing is that 99.9% of the people out there prob doesn't care on the screen ratios on how the feature is presented....making the .1% of us that love the anamorphic format.

What got me was all the hand held photography-so much camera movement (but not as bad as "Hunger Games")?

What's wrong in using dolly/tripod camera shots so we patrons don't have to "hunt" around on the screen to see the characters?

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 02-17-2013, 09:38 PM:

quote: Conor Wilson
CINEMA: AMC Tyson's Corner 16, McLean, VA
AUDITORIUM: 11
PRESENTATION: ETX, Dolby Atmos
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: A hell load of them. More on that below.
RATING: 1 (out of 10)

What happened? The ETX auditorium was okay back in 2011. The IMAX auditorium was crappy in early 2012, and got much better in late 2012. Now just recently, and I think in coincidence with the installation of Dolby Atmos in the auditorium, the ETX auditorium is crappy. Just because you installed the latest in sound technology doesn't make it sound better. It can still sound like poop without the correct tuning. This is the only Atmos auditorium in the D.C. area, and it sucks.

Now I haven't seen The Hobbit in Atmos, but let me tell you the Atmos trailer before Die Hard was cool. And it's followed by the movie, and the first thing I hear is the Fox fanfare seconds early before the logo began. This was fixed right away.

The movie was so shrill and loud that people were covering their ears. As for my first Atmos flick, I was supposed to hear sounds coming at me from all over the room, but instead I thought I was hearing mono. This was bar none, the worst presentation of a movie I've ever seen. Picture was fine, albeit grainy due to the use of film stock and 2K resolution. If there was one thing wrong with the picture, was that I was sitting to close to the screen, and the screen itself has this weird vertical line (that was always there in this auditorium) that possibly has to do with the screen itself, and not the projectors.

And as for the film being flat, what's wrong about that? Aliens was the only film in the Alien franchise to be in flat, as opposed to scope, and it was a very successful film, and that was pre-IMAX. Yes, it was possible the reason it was shot in flat was for fixed flat screens in premium auditoriums like ETX, RPX, XD, and IMAX. One premium auditorium I can think of with a fixed scope screen is Bow-Tie's BTX in Reston Town Center. That screen ran flat films before, and the only film I saw there was Skyfall, which was in scope, so I don't know how Bow-Tie compensates for flat films on their BTX screen.

Until they do a thorough EQ on the ETX screen, I won't be coming back to AMC Tyson's Corner 16.

well another person in this forum, has stated that ETX screens are already TOO loud to begin with - and I agree - Not only was 'The Hobbit' so loud, that it masked any attempt to pinpoint actually sound placement of sounds - only a few points during the film achieved this, notably the quiet scene during the 'Riddles in the Dark' sequence where the disembodied voice of Gollum is emanating/echoing in a effective soundfield.

but yes, getting back to 'Good Day to Die Hard' - it was loud, but NO WHERE as migrane-inducing as 'The Expendables' at Tysons on one of their smaller screens - now THAT was painful. And yes, I agree, did this movie sound any better in Atmos - "no" - it was just a mush of assaultive sound and little to no effective us of height or overhead sound.

big sound does NOT have to be pushed up to '11' to think it's state of the art - dial it down AMC.

in regards to Aliens - I remember reading that James Cameron wanted the film to have a 'guerrilla' like filmmaking look, thus negating the wide scope framing.

speaking of Bow Tie Reston - their BTX screen is in the process of getting made over to Atmos - but probably not til the Fall.

Posted by David Zylstra (Member # 4230) on 02-17-2013, 09:46 PM:

quote: Connor Wilson
Now just recently, and I think in coincidence with the installation of Dolby Atmos in the auditorium, the ETX auditorium is crappy. Just because you installed the latest in sound technology doesn't make it sound better. It can still sound like poop without the correct tuning. This is the only Atmos auditorium in the D.C. area, and it sucks.

FYI - Dolby is doing the room tuning themselves on all the Atmos installs (I have 3 Atmos rooms and currently only Dolby has the equipment to tune the current hardware).

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-17-2013, 11:40 PM:

A lot of sound people seem to think that loud automatically equals better. Brad has said that you can listen to a very loud system and not be bothered by the volume if it's tuned correctly. While I think that is true, it doesn't take into account personal preference. Many people just DON'T LIKE very loud sounds. Even if it sounds wonderful, "too loud" is a turnoff for many people -- even young ones, sometimes.

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 02-18-2013, 11:50 AM:

Although I prefer 1:85, untimately what I most care about is seeing a WELL MADE MOVIE.

Mike

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 02-18-2013, 06:00 PM:

As for the movie itself (since this is supposed to be a review thread):

Kind of reminded me of a filmed demolition derby. All action and very little plot.

In the previous episode McClaim made amends to his daughter. In this one he made amends to his son. I guess in the next one he will make amends to his grandchildren.

Rating: 2 stars out of 5.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-18-2013, 08:28 PM:

I haven't seen A Good Day to Die Hard, but I had a nagging feeling it would suck even before I found out they were releasing it in flat format. There just doesn't seem to be any point to it. Honestly, the first Die Hard movie is really the only good one in the bunch. Even though I enjoyed that movie the original still has very noticeable flaws.

A Good Day to Die Hard currently has a miserable 16% score at Rotten Tomatoes. It doesn't fare much better at Metacritic (a 28% score). I'm not going to waste first run admission prices on this one; if I see it anytime soon it will be on a rental Blu-ray disc or perhaps whenever it arrives on pay TV (provided I still have pay TV by then).

quote: Brad Miller
IMAX needs to go away. They are nothing special anymore and if that theory is correct, they are now fucking up movies by trying to get people to shoot flat. They play the same DCPs and the whole thing is a scam anyway. Just like how THX got to be in the end, they'll put their name on anything for a buck.

I agree. The IMAX name only meant something when it involved 15-perf 70mm film presentations. With digital IMAX isn't anything special. Any movie theater operator could install his own 2 projector setup and probably even do a better job than what IMAX can deliver -like dual 4K projection instead of mere 2K and install a better sound system.

The proverbial bloom will come off the rose here in a couple or so years. Theater chains, driven by need to boost profit margins, will eventually cut IMAX out of the equation -just like they did with THX during the stadium seating building boom back in the 1990s. From the mid 1990s to the middle of last decade THX installations dropped off to nearly nothing and many chains discontinued certification on hundreds of existing theater screens. The same thing is going to happen to IMAX Digital unless the company can come up with a presentation method no one else can copy. That's next to impossible to do with "digital."

quote: Connor Wilson
Now I haven't seen The Hobbit in Atmos, but let me tell you the Atmos trailer before Die Hard was cool.

Connor, I'm confused. You say the Dolby Atmos trailer that played before A Good Day to Die Hard sounded great. But the movie itself was very loud, shrill, sounded like mono, etc. If the Dolby Atmos snipe sounded great and then the movie sounded like crap wouldn't that be a fault of the movie's mix itself rather than something to do with the theater?

quote: Marcel Birgelen
I've noticed this on some other recent releases too. For example: The Avengers, Wrath of the Titans, MIB 3, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Those are all movies that you would've expected to be in scope and not in flat (or an aspect ratio close to flat).

Unfortunately, I think this is probably the start of a very bad trend, one that could ultimately cause movie companies to stop making anything in 'scope format. I posted something similar about this in a thread on Facebook started by Michael Coate.

First of all, how many premium priced big screen theaters have common width screens? I think all the Lie-MAX screens are common width. What about those XD, ETX, etc. concepts copying the Lie-MAX concept? How many of them are common width? Those screens are generating greater profit margins than the standard theater screens, and a lot of standard sized stadium seated theaters also have common width screens. The bean counters are certainly going to notice this and want their big budget movies looking as big as possible on those premium priced screens. Driving Miss Daisy is bigger than Die Hard on a common width screen.

Then we have to look at the technical aspects of how 'scope is treated in digital cinema: IT SUCKS ASS. Flat is a hell of a lot bigger than 'scope in terms of pixel count. In 2K format, a flat image has 412,944 more pixels than a 'scope image (2,157,840 versus 1,744,896 -that's going by 1998x1080 versus 2048x852). AFAIK the current d-cinema spec doesn't allow for an anamorphic lens treatment of 'scope to at least use all 1080 vertical pixels on the DLP chips.

With movies shifting over en masse to being shot on video 'scope is being treated pretty much the same damned way. They just crop into the image to extract a 'scope frame -kinda like what happened with Skyfall. Those who paid extra to see it in Lie-MAX got to see a "full height" 1.77:1 frame.

And then there's the situation with home video. Lots of people still don't like black bars on their movies. Blu-ray has been generally very good at preserving original aspect ratio on most movies. How is OAR getting protected in other delivery methods (streaming services, pay per view, premium cable, etc.)?

The only advantage I can see with 'scope in the d-cinema and home HD realms is cost savings on bandwidth, shorter render times, etc. due to 'scope having over 400,000 fewer pixels than the flat format. Not exactly a great selling point for 'scope.

With film pretty much on its death bed and video set to take over every aspect of movie production I think anamorphic lenses and the 2.39:1 'scope frame could end up as casualties. If we want movies to look more like TV, and shooting on video is a good way to do it, then that's how it's going to be. They might as well throw out all that film look post production filter nonsense and just let the video cameras show off all their native RGB intensity. That will make the transition complete.

Posted by Phil Ranucci (Member # 3820) on 02-18-2013, 11:05 PM:

It pretty much sucked, as expected.
WTF is it with the horizontal blue lens flares? I think this started with JJ Abrams on Star Trek, but it's annoying as the daty is long. Who thinks this looks good?

Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 02-19-2013, 01:45 AM:

It's 2 hours I'll never get back.

Awful.

Just awful.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-19-2013, 01:49 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
AFAIK the current d-cinema spec doesn't allow for an anamorphic lens treatment of 'scope to at least use all 1080 vertical pixels on the DLP chips.

Yes it does. Properly designed big screen auditoriums use them and it looks quite good. Next time you're in town I'll show you.

For that matter I use an anamorphic in my screening room and it blows away zooming (as expected).

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-19-2013, 03:05 AM:

...since the entire chip is used, not just some pixels turned off to make a 'scope picture claimed to be presented in HD.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-19-2013, 03:32 AM:

quote: Brad Miller
Yes it does. Properly designed big screen auditoriums use them and it looks quite good. Next time you're in town I'll show you.

Although it works, it's still something of a hack. You're first scaling/stretching the image across the full height of your DMDs and then stretch it back into proportion with your anamorphic lens.

It would be great if the DCPs themselves could be anamorphic too, because then you could just skip the digital scaling/stretching and still use the full pixel count of your DMDs. In that case, scope wouldn't have a lower resolution than flat.

Because like Bobby already mentioned, it's kind of shitty right now... You're not only losing light (without anamorphic lenses), but also a lot of pixels on a format that's supposed to be bigger than flat on an appropriate screen.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 02-19-2013, 06:14 AM:

Knowing the movie would probably suck I saw it anyway at AMC Downtown Disney just to see a movie in Atmos. The movie sucked. This wasn't a Die Hard movie. It was a plotless action movie and Bruce Willis happened to be in it and named John McClane.

As for Atmos, the surround field was awesome and to me a huge improvement of the standard 5.1 or 7.1 setups. The problem is that I'm not sure that non sound buffs will notice. I explained it to my wife after the movie and she said that she didn't really notice a difference. She also said she didn't like the Atmos trailer because it didn't have any "cool sounds".

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-19-2013, 08:26 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Although it works, it's still something of a hack. You're first scaling/stretching the image across the full height of your DMDs and then stretch it back into proportion with your anamorphic lens.

There in lies the problem. The DCP doesn't have an anamorphic image using the entire chip, like 2048 x 1080. They could do that, but only if all the stops along the production chain are also doing it. If the image is getting cropped down to only 852 pixels tall at any point during the way then the end result is compromised. Worse yet, some movies shot on video are shot at mere 1080p HD resolution and simply blown up to that 2048 pixel width.

This is reminiscent of the anamorphic versus non-anamorphic DVDs from way back. I have old special edition DVD of The Abyss. I haven't watched it in a very long time since it is flat out unwatchable on any HDTV set. It's non anamorphic. It has to be zoomed both horizontally and vertically to fill the width of a HD screen. Once zoomed, it looks awful.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-19-2013, 01:22 PM:

Now that we've gone digital, Flat is suddenly the more light-efficient format. Could that be the reason this is Flat?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-19-2013, 03:37 PM:

Light efficiency could be a factor. In general I think it has more to do with Lie-MAX screens being common width. A flat image is going to be larger than 'scope on that kind of screen. If the other ultra-mega-XDETXRPX-whatever screens are doing common width (along with charging a premium fee on top of the normal ticket price) then it's only going to make it more enticing for studios to shoot movies in 1.85:1 format, or even 1.77:1 the native aspect ratio for HD video cameras.

Scope was arguably the best format for 35mm release film prints. It used the entire 4-perf frame. Scope tended to look better in that regard. The situation is reversed in d-cinema.

If the movie studios have any desire to do 'scope correctly in this new era of videography-based movies and d-cinema equipped theaters a few things must change.

A proper 'scope movie in 2K should have a native rendered image of 2582 X 1080. No blow up up-rezzing bullshit to get there either. Since no video cameras support that resolution natively a lot of videography would need to be done at 3K or 4K and cropped/down-sampled to that 2582 X 1080 setting. The DCP would have a 2048 X 1080 image with the image squeezed to 79.3% of its normal width. A proper anamorphic lens on the digital projector would unsqueeze it back to proper 'scope proportions.

I seriously doubt anything like that is going to happen to fix how 'scope is treated. After all since all this stuff is "digital" already it's "perfect" already too. Never mind any specific details that point out serious flaws.

Instead, we're probably going to see a lot more in the way of 1.85:1 and 1.77:1 ratio movies. As viewers get more and more used to that I think more and more of the RGB video look will creep into the picture. In the long term all movies could end up looking like afternoon soap operas.
[Razz]

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-19-2013, 07:29 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Since no video cameras support that resolution natively a lot of videography would need to be done at 3K or 4K and cropped/down-sampled to that 2582 X 1080 setting. The DCP would have a 2048 X 1080 image with the image squeezed to 79.3% of its normal width. A proper anamorphic lens on the digital projector would unsqueeze it back to proper 'scope proportions.

There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses, besides some lens compatibility/availability issues for certain kind of digital cameras. Most professional digital movie cameras even have some kind of support for it. It would also bring back the anamorphic look (including the well known bluish lens flares) to those kind of productions.

The people in post production will probably hate you for it, because their whole process is probably still optimized for square pixels, but if this would become popular, it would only be a temporary problem.

The good thing is, you could still create a non-anamorphic DCP from this for all the theaters that don't have anamorphic lenses on their digital gear, without compromising the quality of those, because you're now scaling the image down instead of scaling it up.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 02-19-2013, 07:35 PM:

quote: Phil Ranucci
WTF is it with the horizontal blue lens flares? I think this started with JJ Abrams on Star Trek, but it's annoying as the daty is long. Who thinks this looks good?

It's the current state of-the-art trick to make boring shots look interesting. Like having steam plumes in colored lights during the 80's.

- Carsten

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-19-2013, 08:11 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses

I'd really like to see this done. Use the full area of the chip.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-19-2013, 09:27 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
There is actually no real technical reason why you couldn't shoot a digitally acquired movie with anamorphic lenses, besides some lens compatibility/availability issues for certain kind of digital cameras.

A different line of lenses would be required to squeeze a 2582 X 1080 image onto a 2048 X 1080 chip. On top of that, how many video cameras actually record a 2K image 2048 pixels wide? I know of a few that simply shoot "2K" as 1920 X 1080. Then that image is blown up slightly to 2048 pixels in width.

Anamorphic lenses originally made for motion picture film cameras typically have a 2:1 squeeze. That's too much for what I'm talking about. There are various kinds of adapters and attachments that can be used with some video cameras and D-SLR cameras, but AFAIK they yield 2X or 1.5X squeeze ratios. A proper d-cinema 'scope treatment would need a series of lenses with a milder squeeze ratio.

I don't know all that much about "cine" quality anamorphic lenses, but am under the impression the really good ones cost considerably more than spherical lenses. They're bigger and heavier too. "Cine" quality spherical lenses are pricey enough as it is. Has anyone here checked out the cine lenses for Canon's new EOS-C cameras? The prices on those lenses are absolutely insane. I'd hate to see how much more a top quality lens made specifically for 1.77:1 to 2.39:1 anamorphic squeeze would cost.

Posted by Shawn M. Martin (Member # 6762) on 02-24-2013, 08:36 AM:

It really is terrible, save for some parts of the car chase, and the part in the taxi. Short, flat, and totally forgettable. Not a Die Hard movie, at all.

The biggest laugh actually came before the movie even started. When the lights went down and the Fox fanfare ended, some guy in the back said in a really soft voice, "Happy Valentine's Day!" and the whole place exploded.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-24-2013, 12:51 PM:

quote: Jim Henk
It's 2 hours I'll never get back.

Where the hell did you see it? Isn't it a running time of 1:40?

I thought this movie was fun. It's Die Hard. I didn't expect a hugely complicated plot. For those that are going in looking for a plot and coming out disappointed --- I don't understand that.

We saw this in IMAX for two reasons. 1) I was curious to see what the brand new digital IMAX install looked and sounded like, and more importantly, 2) It worked for my schedule better.

First I'll say that the sound in this new theater is FANTASTIC. Probably the best I have heard in a very long time.

As far as the picture goes, Hollywood doesn't understand how to frame a movie in IMAX. I think Chris and Wally may be the only people who understand it. And by the way, DO NOT SHAKE THE DAMN CAMERA when you're planning to release in IMAX! What the hell? Seizure-cam sucks anyway, but for the love of Pete, my neck hurts trying to follow the only guy in frame when he's standing still. Hold the damn camera still. Learn to light. Learn to direct. Learn to frame. Learn to do all of the things that you're trying to make up for not doing by shaking the camera and making me dizzy... or at least do us all a favor and don't release in the big boy format.

Other than that, I actually did enjoy the movie. Despite my sore neck. I will probably enjoy it more on a much smaller screen.

Posted by Joseph L. Kleiman (Member # 3097) on 02-26-2013, 01:41 PM:

Saw this in IMAX digital in a "legacy" IMAX theater. For such a big screen in close proximity, there was way too much shaky cam in the first half of the movie - especially when not needed. The film came across as a weak Die Hard movie when compared to the others in the series. The father-son dynamic was awkward. It felt like someone at FOX had bought a Mission: IMPOSSIBLE type screenplay and another said "Let's stick John McClane in it." (prob to take advantage of the publicity over GI Joe). Overall, though, it was a fun 90-minutes featuring the hottest Russian psycho chick to die in a helicopter related incident since Xenia Onatopp (played by Famke Jannsen)in Goldeneye. [Big Grin]

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 02-26-2013, 01:49 PM:

quote: Joseph L. Kleiman
It felt like someone at FOX had bought a Mission: IMPOSSIBLE type screenplay and another said "Let's stick John McClane in it."

According to IMDB this is the only "Die Hard" movie that was actually written for the series. All of the others (including the first) were adapted to fit the John McClane/Die Hard series.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 02-27-2013, 05:48 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Anamorphic lenses originally made for motion picture film cameras typically have a 2:1 squeeze.

If you want to use the full 2K resolution of the sensor (which is tipically 1.78:1) and the DMD/LCoS of the projector, you need something different than a "2x squeeze".

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'd hate to see how much more a top quality lens made specifically for 1.77:1 to 2.39:1 anamorphic squeeze would cost.

Since nobody is doing this yet, it would be incredibly expensive. Still, someone has to be the first one.

quote: Joseph L. Kleiman
For such a big screen in close proximity, there was way too much shaky cam in the first half of the movie

Shaky cam is often just a bad excuse to hide bad special effects or low quality sets.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-28-2013, 10:27 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you want to use the full 2K resolution of the sensor (which is tipically 1.78:1) and the DMD/LCoS of the projector, you need something different than a "2x squeeze".

Yes, I said that in my post.

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Shaky cam is often just a bad excuse to hide bad special effects or low quality sets.

Not only does shaky cam hide bad visual effects and cheap sets, it also kind of hides how badly choreographed and performed a fight scene or any other piece of action may be. Shaky cam is bullshit "filmmaking" (I put that in quotes since so much of "film" is just video anymore).

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-28-2013, 12:30 PM:

Why don't you just say "moviemaking?" Or possibly "cinematography?"

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-28-2013, 01:00 PM:

I do say "moviemaking" and "Movie(s)". "Cinematography" is really something that has been associated with film-based motion picture photography. There's already another term for shooting movies with electronic cameras: "videography."

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-28-2013, 09:06 PM:

It's my night off so I just watched Die Hard 2 (NOT "Die Harder" which so many publications, DVD packages and websites insist on calling it). I haven't seen it in at least 10 years. It's a great movie, a little bit overly spectacular at times and I've never liked the final ending part -- the plane taxis for about an hour, it seems, and there's no way the fuel-as-fuse trick would have worked, at least I don't think it would. (Besides, that gag is right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.) And there's not NEAR as much snappy, hilarious dialogue as in the first movie. But it is still a great popcorn flick, which is the whole point of the Die Hard series.

We'll probably play the new one as a fill-in one of these weeks. For a good mindless piece of fun I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-28-2013, 09:12 PM:

Mike, watch this and you will see why people keep screwing up the title.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-28-2013, 10:16 PM:

Yeah, I remember that trailer...the poster said "Die Harder" also.

I guess it's not the first time people mistook a catchphrase for a title.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-01-2013, 04:49 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
I guess it's not the first time people mistook a catchphrase for a title.

In this case, it's pretty confusing and inconsistent, so I guess those people can be forgiven:

1: Die Hard
2: Die Hard 2
3: Die Hard: With a Vengeance
4: Live Free or Die Hard / Die Hard 4.0
5: A Good Day to Die Hard

Posted by Nate Spaulding (Member # 7388) on 03-01-2013, 06:36 PM:

I work at one of the 35mm AAFES theater in europe and was lucky enough to see Die Hard 5 in 35mm.. We did a preview of it, and 21st century fox sent an entire security team with the film and the canisters, monitored me inspect, build, interlock, play, and then break down the entire film

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-01-2013, 09:20 PM:

I could never call Live Free or Die Hard "Die Hard 4.0". That's incredibly stupid. Though it would explain why it's kind of buggy.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-02-2013, 02:54 AM:

quote: Joseph L. Kleiman
For such a big screen in close proximity, there was way too much shaky cam in the first half of the movie...

Bet, with sitting that close, you could count every grain speck in any scene, and shaky cam would be more sickening to watch.

Sorry, digital is just not it - just a poor excuse to rid of a quality medium that proved itself. If we are now using digital, why not make movies that can work with it at the extreme?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-02-2013, 05:57 AM:

quote: Nate Spaulding
21st century fox sent an entire security team with the film and the canisters, monitored me inspect, build, interlock, play, and then break down the entire film

Such an explosive movie surely needs a whole security team just to keep it safe. But it is nice to know that those 35mm prints are better guarded than many prisoners out there [Wink]

quote: Joe Redifer
I could never call Live Free or Die Hard "Die Hard 4.0". That's incredibly stupid.

I don't know if there are prints or DCPs out there that actually call it Die Hard 4.0, but it was billed as such in many theaters around here and that same title was also featured on most posters. It's not only a stupid name, but the inconsistency in which it was advertised with those two titles being mixed up all the time was even more stupid. But consistency was never the strongest point of the whole Die Hard franchise anyway.

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Sorry, digital is just not it - just a poor excuse to rid of a quality medium that proved itself. If we are now using digital, why not make movies that can work with it at the extreme?

The movie was shot in 35mm, but most theaters will be showing it in 2K digital. Personally, I don't like the look of most 35mm to 2K transfers. When you sit too close, the film grain looks more like digital image noise all to often. Things change when you're looking at a 4K transfer, Django for example looked awesome in 4K.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-02-2013, 01:45 PM:

Considering just how lossy compressed the imagery in some DCP file can be, some of that "grain" may actually be JPEG style compression artifacts.

And if someone really cranks up the compression levels on 4K material to conserve hard drive space it makes the jump to 4K resolution pointless.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-02-2013, 04:21 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Considering just how lossy compressed the imagery in some DCP file can be, some of that "grain" may actually be JPEG style compression artifacts.

I'm sure that is part of the problem. Film grain and any noise in particular is pretty hard to compress.

A particular good example is The Grey (2011), that movie had a lot of grain in it. The DCP was horrible to watch, it looked like an endless stream of JPEG2000 compression artifacts to me.

Posted by Connor Wilson (Member # 6088) on 03-03-2013, 08:45 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Connor, I'm confused. You say the Dolby Atmos trailer that played before A Good Day to Die Hard sounded great. But the movie itself was very loud, shrill, sounded like mono, etc. If the Dolby Atmos snipe sounded great and then the movie sounded like crap wouldn't that be a fault of the movie's mix itself rather than something to do with the theater?

No, the Dolby Atmos trailer sounded at best: good, not great. It could sound better, bass was kind of flimsy, and should feel like a throb to your chest. I was just excited to see it on the big screen. Also, the trailer for The Internship was loud, maybe because the projectionist or automation forgot to adjust the fader accordingly.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-04-2013, 10:13 AM:

One movie trailer that's louder than the others is the fault of the dummies who insisted that movie trailer's mix be louder. I can see some movie theaters doing some extra effort to program in a lower volume level for the trailers so they're not louder than the main feature, but I don't expect any theater to check and program in a custom volume level for each specific movie trailer. Honestly, this is a situation the movie studios themselves could fix if they actually gave a shit about consistent volume levels. If the movie distributors were doing their jobs correctly the theater wouldn't have to mess with programming in different volume levels for trailers, commercials and different movies. With the job done right the fader would be set at one level and stay there.

With the trend of projection booths moving towards a completely unmanned, remotely operated state that would put even more pressure and blame onto the shoulders of movie studios.

The way Dolby Atmos is being marketed it sounds like the system automatically tunes/EQ's itself according to the auditorium where it is installed. I suppose one of the goals is cutting the amount of time a human being is paid to service the sound system (as if there's a huge amount of time being spent on that as it is).

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 03-06-2013, 04:26 PM:

even though it was only the second film I heard in Atmos, I thought it was a step backwards since 'The Hobbit' wasn't as bombastic and aurally painful to Die Hard 5's soundmix. Since 'Oz: The Great and Powerful' isn't a violent action flick I have high hopes the Atmos mix I plan on hearing over the weekend isn't a sonic headache waiting to happen, and can impress me.

Posted by Andrew Thomas (Member # 7000) on 03-29-2013, 03:53 PM:

With regard to the topic of true anamorphic capture in digital, Arri has released versions of the Alexa with native 4:3 sensors for doing anamorphic scope recording. I is quite likely that RED will release a 4:3 sensored camera sooner or later. I would be pretty surprised if Sony didn't follow suit as well.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 04-03-2013, 10:43 PM:

quote:
I have seen a number of humorous reviews though, my favorite (and surprisingly not written by John Wilson) is:

quote:
Die Hard 5 is the Crystal Skull of Die Hard movies.

Just saw that. [Wink]

Yeah, I won't be watching it.