[Justin101]

So, as promised yesterday I watched;

1408
Well things got off to a fine start, I was genuinely intrigued. However, just as most Stephen King adaptation can attest to, things went down hill and fast. Cusack held things together the best he could as most of the time he was acting against himself alone in the room. Samuel L Jackson as the manager of the hotel was great and probably deserved a bit more screen time even if the lines he had to deliver were a bit hokey. Once the timer in the hotel room started ticking down it got a little tedious, just trial after trial for Cusack to overcome, some more successful than others.
Not great, but not terrible either, I'd suggest to watch it if you have never seen it but it's not one to watch again.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
This one also suffers from the Stephen King effect! For the first hour of the film I was thinking, what was everyone talking about, this is actually a pretty good film, then the titular battle commenced... Too much CGI, it's what has ruined these Hobbit films, nothing looks real. The Elvish Army, all the wide shots are just completely faked and you can tell, Billy Connolly as a dwarf, except it's not, it's just his voice and a CGI character and it looks fake... As somebody else pointed out the difference between LOTR and The Hobbit films is that old practical effects vs CGI thing. Just because the technology is at that level now doesn't mean you should (ab)use it.
The battle was too much, I got battle fatigue, it worked much better when it honed in to specific characters such as Bard and his family.
I probably will watch this one again and it's not the worst in the trilogy!