I'm not dead yet. I'm still here. Just a little off-center this week as personal matters have taken priority over blogging matters. This whole week has been a bit discombobulating and next week won't be a lot better and as such my brain is in a scramble as to what to write about. Let's start with a reminder: On Monday, March 16th the illustrious Boudu Rick Olson of Coosa Creek Cinema will be hosting the 3rd featured film of the The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club, known around these parts as TOERIFC. Rick will be putting up a piece on Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning. If you know it well or have just watched it please join in the discussion. But a reminder, these discussions delve into the details of the film in question so please make sure it's either a recent viewing or a film known very well to you if you choose to join in. I'll give Boudu another look before Monday and can hardly wait to read Rick's piece.
Reminders aside I've spent some time in the last week catching up on movies from the last couple of years that I didn't get around to upon their release. One from fairly recently was Wall-E and if you've read anything I've written on CGI movies before you'll probably not be too surprised by my reaction which was tepid. However, I can say this: It's probably the best CGI 
movie I've seen, I didn't dislike it, and most importantly, it helped me to finally figure out what I can't stand about CGI movies, and it has nothing to do with the CGI part of it (except in live-action movies where the CGI is usually a lazy way to produce filler). It's the goddamned anthropomorphized characters! That's what I hate! Why did this movie finally reveal that to me and none of the others did? Because I love science fiction that's why! I kept thinking if only this were live-action and the robots were simply that, robots, used to collect samples and the Captain and/or a couple of other people on the starship Axiom were the real main characters investigating what Earth was all about and slowly discovering to their horror that it was all lost - Now THAT'S A MOVIE I COULD GET BEHIND! But instead I got lot's of cute back and forth between two fluffy floppy eared bunnies named Wall-E and E.V.E. in the guise of robots for an hour and a half and an ending far, far, FAR too easy for a story with this one's implications. And once again I was left concluding that either the state of film criticism in this country is at an all-time low or maybe this is as good as it gets. I mean, if this thing was coming in near the top of lists at the end of the year then I can only conclude standards are pretty low. It's fine, done well and I don't hate it. But it could have, and should have, been so much more.
Speaking of science fiction another movie I saw was Danny Boyle's Sunshine which left me tremendously disappointed. I can say with little doubt that I have rarely been so annoyed at a director's visual choices as I was with the last 15 minutes of Sunshine. There has been much talk of a genre shift in the last act of the movie but a genre shift can be an invigorating thing 
when done well. No, what people didn't discuss enough of was that there was a stylistic shift and that's what made the difference. We've all seen films that go from comedy to drama and back again, or a thriller that ends up a romance and so on. A genre shift is not a bad thing. What Danny Boyle does that is unforgivable at the end of Sunshine is a stylistic shift, and that's not a good thing. It's incompetent. Like doing two-thirds of a painting expressionist and then doing the last corner as an abstract. In the last act we shift from general third person setups where the camera centers its characters and frames the action in an unobtrusive way, over the shoulder, two shots, etc to herky jerky bizarro POV shots where we are told who the killer/monster is - that's important, we are told who it is - and yet Boyle hides his face and figure from us. Remember now, WE KNOW WHO IT IS!!! There is no reason to hide his face unless for some reason you are an incompetent buffoon behind the camera who doesn't understand even the simplest notions of third act payoffs. I suspect of course that Boyle is no incompetent buffoon which makes his blurred visual shift in the last act even more confusing. Upon reflection I believe Boyle knew the screenplay took a nose dive near the end and by providing jarring and confusing imagery the audience might be distracted. And on a personal level, I don't like pretty boys playing physicists. It tears down the fourth wall for me.
Finally, by way of sci-fi/monster movies I saw Cloverfield and finally came away satisfied. Not absolutely and completely but enough to call it even and walk away with some sense of accomplishment. I didn't feel the extended opening party sequence added a whole hell of a lot to the movie (the same character relations and connections could have been made in half the time) but nevertheless, the pace was quick, the creature unexplained and the characters kept the movie alive. They didn't interest me on any personal level but they felt real enough to keep me going with it. In the end, I don't know if or when I'll watch it again (it feels like a movie that may be more effective if seen only once - that make any sense to anybody?) but I thought it was good and probably the best monster movie I've seen in years.
And then, lots of personal stuff happened that has kept me from blogging but I am writing. What, I don't know but I'm writing. I don't know how much of it is about movies, but it's therapeutic and I'll force it all on you sometime next week. And one final note: Name that Movie will be taking the week off. TOERIFC discussions usually occupy the whole day, at least for the first two (No pressure or anything Rick) so I don't want to interfere with that. As a TOERIFC founding member and supporter I must stick to my policy of no posts on discussion day, except a reminder post letting everyone know where I'll be and what the discussion is all about: Boudu Saved from Drowning at the Creek. Be there!
51 comments:
Welcome back, Jonathan. I hope whatever personal issues you're facing aren't too serious, and it's just a matter of grinding through to the other side.
Anyway. I like Sunshine, but I'm not too crazy about the style shift towards the end, either. I think Boyle was going for some kind of jarring, abstract horror look that didn't pay off. It's muddy and annoying. I think not showing the killer/monster's face was part of that, and I don't think it matters too much that we don't see his face, because we don't know what that guy looks like anyway, do we? But I'm not defending Boyle's choices. He loses control of his own impulses all the time -- he does it all throughout Millions, another good movie that would have benefited from a more restrained director. The only two Boyle films I've seen that didn't make me roll my eyes at the over-the-top camera moves and light smudges are Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later.
You're right, maybe he just is over the top and can't restrain himself. And no, it doesn't matter what the guy looks like but just as a matter of basic visual storytelling, he's a character and you want to see him. It kept bothering me that I couldn't see him and I didn't know why.
Anyway, my "tremendous disappointment" comes almost exclusively from that stylistic shift so I'd have to say I liked most of the movie. In fact, the moment when Capa discovers there is a fifth person on board was great. At that point I was psyched for the genre shift. And then, well ... you know. That blurry shit happened.
And looking over Boyle's career is does seem that he is a director without a style or genre or signature mark of any kind. He just films whatever and in whatever style suits him at that moment and moves on.
There are a number of good moments in the film, and Cillian Murphy is always good. So I feel largely positive towards the movie, but I know where you're coming from.
Also, I haven't seen Wall-E yet, but am I understanding you correctly that your problem with these movies is simply the anthropomorphized characters? Because that's, like, 90%, or more, of all kids' movies. Does this mean you don't like Bambi either?
Also, I haven't seen Wall-E yet, but am I understanding you correctly that your problem with these movies is simply the anthropomorphized characters? Because that's, like, 90%, or more, of all kids' movies. Does this mean you don't like Bambi either?
No, I love Bambi. I thought my statement might be confusing but I let it stand anyway. Let me elaborate. I like some CGI. I like Toy Story I & II, Finding Nemo and to a lesser degree, I think The Incredibles is okay. I like those and Bambi and many other children's movies made for children. What I don't like is when a CGI movie like Wall-E has a great kernel of a sci-fi idea, one that could be fully explored with incredible depth as a live action adult natured film and instead it's wasted on a couple of fucking cutesy robots falling in love. It's the wrong story for them. The story demands weight and gets none.
As for other CGI, I find most of it lazy and shitty, where it's thrown together quickly because it's so easy to exploit the technology (Madagascar, Over the Hedge, etc.). So that's my main problem with it. The lazy quick production of it, like those awful parody movies every summer.
Finding Nemo and Bambi anthropomorphize their characters but keep them in their own environment, not interacting with humans (and I mean actual interaction, not being caught by the dentist). With something like Ratatouille there's this cute interaction that I just don't like. And it's there in Wall-E too. And I just don't like that. It feels phony and wrong to me.
But seriously, if you like Sci-Fi, you'll probably agree that Wall-E has a pretty good idea for a story, like Soylent Green or Silent Running (which had two robots as well) but spends most of its time watching Wall-E run into things or swooning over EVE or flying around the stars with her. It bothered me that a good sci-fi idea was wasted on these characters that would have delighted children in a story not as clever by half.
Okay, I can see that. I don't necessarily agree (regarding Ratatouille, anyway, which I thought was great), but I can see it. And the other movies you mentioned in this current crop, the ones I've seen, aren't worth a nickel, I admit, but it has always been thus, as somebody probably once said.
On to Cloverfield! I liked that one, too. I have seen it twice now, and I would say that you're correct, it loses something the second time around, but that's not such a big deal. Besides, I still liked it, it just didn't quite have the same impact.
I really loved the structure of it, with the old video of the "good day" blipping in and out of the relentless horror, with that bittersweet tag at the end. It's a good, effective monster movie that a lot of people refused to take on its own terms. Kinda frustrating.
And you should check out Arbogast's review of it. He makes me think it might be better than I already think it is.
And I know it's small but I love the splashdown in that final "good day" moment. Creepy.
I thought the structure was more complex than it was given credit for and it did something a lot of movies don't do anymore: It assumed the audience wasn't full of idiots. Like when (I forgot the names) the girl gets bit and the government/military people take her away immediately. The viewer puts all the pieces together without having it spelled out. I know it's minor but that's the point. The movie knew it didn't need to stop and explain that once bitten the victim becomes dangerous and so on and on. Really good, effective stuff.
And I read Arbo's review when it came out but I'll have to give it another look.
Another thing about the part where the military takes away the girl who was bitten: up to that point, she and the guy with the camera were kind of the "funny" ones, and the "cute" ones. And she'd just saved his life, and all that. And then bang, she's dead, and there's no time to even think about it or for people to really comment on it. I would say that at times the movie is a little too jokey, but sometimes the jokes serve to lull you into a false sense of security before hitting you with moments like that.
I loved Cloverfield. I even managed to conquer my vertigo to see it through to the end. It's a real commentary on our times, maybe the best political monster movie since Godzilla.
Bill, also, as far as purely effective scare moments the movie also succeeds greatly. The baby monsters in the tunnel have been set up for us by the newscast everyone watches where we see them come out like spiders out of an egg and immediately attack. So later, in the tunnel when he turns on the night vision in the camera and you see them on the ceiling - Wow! What an effective moment!
If for moments like that alone, I wonder why it wasn't as successful at the box office.
Marilyn, that scene of going up to the top of that leaning building is very effective isn't it? And the whole idea of something, something "other", attacking without warning, without understanding - it speaks to a level deeper than most monster movies ever go.
I think it is a direct critique of how we have let media and the navel-gazing of the past 25 or so years destroy us. We've got young people who don't know how to connect and feel compelled to photograph and film everything, like the stereotypical Japanese who have so many Kodak moments that they never experience what they are photographing. The quest to save one young woman is itself a savage commentary on picking one, live person to care about rather than caring about the world at large. It's also an interesting commentary about romantic love as salvation - a crock of shit perpetuated by media, particularly movies. This movie is very deep.
Marilyn, one of the most effective moments of the film for me occurs after the Statue of Liberty head comes flying down the street. Instead of a sense of uncontrolled horror followed by immediate flight everyone stands around it with their cellphone cams taking pictures. That moment was chilling to me, showing a disconnect in the midst of personal terror.
And that is one of the mot symbolic moments as well. Liberty has been beheaded, and all they can do is take pictures.
Talk more about me!
I liked the part when Arbogast fell backward down the stairs and one of the monsters ate him.
Yeah. That was awesome.
Bill, I thought Arbo's review was so-so to middling. I mean, when I could stay awake long enough to read it. What did you think of it?
What? Oh, hi Arbo! Didn't see you there. So anyway, GREAT REVIEW!
No, seriously, I like the review a lot and it along with the conversation here has inspired me to maybe give it another look, in about a year when parts of it will be gone from my memory.
I think Cloverfield shows how our collective reaction to horror has gone from "Wow!" to "Whoa." And I think embedded in "Whoa" is an internal "click" that the cell phone camera approximates perfectly, that Joe Jitsu (does anybody else get this reference?) need to freeze the moment and to protect oneself from the awfulness. Cloverfield illustrates beautifully that horror doesn't need to take a minute.
But enough about me.
Jonathan - You haven't tried to guess the mystery couple on my blog. I'm hurt. I always participate in your contests even when I haven't got a X$^* clue what they are. (HINT: It's not Arbogast.)
I'm sorry Marilyn, I'm not at work today which is when I'm all over the place and I apologize profusely for being so pathetic my first day back online at surfing the blogs. I'm on my way. Don't hold it against me.
Cry me a river.
No really, I was just surprised. I know it's been a weird week for you.
Marilyn, I have successfully passed the test and guessed the correct actors. I am a god! And seriously, I've been in and out so I apologize again.
And Arbo, I think this is the best post you've ever written.
I'm partial to this one. But that's just me!
Bill, here's one we can both get behind. That Arbo, some writer!
Tonight/tomorrow morning, 2am EST on TCM:
Shack Out on 101.
If you've never seen it, it's a must, and it's not on DVD.
Thanks for bringing that up Flickhead. Now I'll have an empty feeling in my gut about missing it. I just looked it up and:
1. I've never seen it
2. I really want to see it.
3. I have no DVR and with my life and this week, I can't stay up until 4 a.m. watching a movie that starts at 2 anymore than I can fly to Jupiter.
So somebody better release it on DVD soon.
I have the ability to burn DVDs from DVR recordings. If you REALLY want it, what will you do to get it? Hmmmmm?
Well I could just wait until it comes on again and hope I have a DVR by then. Getting anything from anyone would disclose my identity and address which is only known to a couple of my friends, online that is, my friends in my offline life know who I am obviously. Of course, if I gave you my name and address, you can give me a link to a picture of you somewhere so I could put a face with the name.
I set Shack Out on 101 to DVR last night! I'm a genius!!
Yeah, but I don't want your picture.
I could possibly do that, or you could have it sent to a friend who you could threaten with bodily injury if your identity is revealed. Tell me which you'd rather?
If you record it Marilyn, I'll happily e-mail you my name and address. I'm hiding from work, not from any of you.
OK.
Since I recommended Sunshine I figure I should come to it's defense so here it goes...
I can understand that you didn't like the movie even though I disagree with a lot of your objections. I prefer and happen to love ambiguity in films, and the good outweighed the bad for me. But it's not a perfect film by any means. But to say that:
And looking over Boyle's career is does seem that he is a director without a style or genre or signature mark of any kind. He just films whatever and in whatever style suits him at that moment and moves on.
is just plain silly.
How can anyone not see the similar stylistic choices Boyle's made in his career when you actually look at all the films he's made? That's just plain bizare to me. From the kinetic camera work to the color palettes he chooses to use, to the way his characters interact, etc. His films are made with countless stylistic choices.
One element that's plainly obvious to me is that Boyle loves horror films. From Shallow Grave all the way to Slumdog, it's clear that he enjoys letting the horror aspects found in everything from walking corpses to the dread of using a public bathroom bubble to the surface in grotesque and often surprising ways.
I think Sunshine's problems rest in the fact that Boyle (once again) gets caught up in exploring the horror elements of his film and looses touch with his characters and storytelling. But compared to other sci-fi films I've managed to sit through in the last 10 years, Sunshine was an unexpected treat.
Frankly I wish Boyle would make more horror films and thrillers since Shallow Grave and 28 days Later are really his two best films.
And I'm with Bill on Cillian Murphy. He's one of my favorite working actors. I find it damn funny that people (lots of critics said the same, besides yourself Jonathan) are bothered by his looks.
I've been watching sci-fi films with large busted super babes playing scientists in movies for YEARS and found nothing to complain about. How the tide has turned. Cillian Murphy provides Sunshine with some great eye-candy and I for one enjoyed it. But unlike a lot of super babes, he can act too.
Jonathan, I echo Bill saying welcome back.
As far as Wall-E goes, I had a very similar reaction. For me, it wasn't the anthropomorphic critters and robots per se -- I liked Bambi, Daffy Duck, etc., too -- but the uneasy mixture of photo-realism and cutesy-cutesy. And when we got to where we saw humans, oy vey. I explained it better in a piece I wrote a couple of months ago.
As far as Sunshine goes, whatever the reason, the last act sucked, but I'm kinda with Kimberly on this one, I think Boyle does have a recognizable style, he just manages to go from genre to genre, with a preference for horror. You said it well, Kimberly.
The more I look back on Cloverfield, the more I like it.
I prefer and happen to love ambiguity in films, and the good outweighed the bad for me.
I do too. There is none in this film though. That's a part of the problem. The climax presents us with no ambiguity about what happened or who was responsible and yet Boyle keeps it hidden from view like it has.
From the kinetic camera work to the color palettes he chooses to use, to the way his characters interact, etc. His films are made with countless stylistic choices.
I'm sure you're right. I probably haven't paid as much attention as I should to Boyle's films.
I think Sunshine's problems rest in the fact that Boyle (once again) gets caught up in exploring the horror elements of his film and looses touch with his characters and storytelling.
Right again. I agree. As well as Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later being his two best.
I find it damn funny that people (lots of critics said the same, besides yourself Jonathan) are bothered by his looks.
I've been watching sci-fi films with large busted super babes playing scientists in movies for YEARS and found nothing to complain about.
Well I have, and my wife too. We can't get enough of Hollywood and World Cinema glamour kings and queens playing doctors, physicists and scholars (can't get enough in the ironic sense). It's been a part of movies since they began so obviously I've learned to deal with it (I mean, come on, Cary Grant is one of my favorites) but Murphy, who I thought was fantastic in 28 Days, just seemed wrong as the physicist on board. It just didn't work for me. But he's a fine actor.
But Kimberly, remember, as I said to Bill, I liked the whole movie up until that ending and only disliked that because of the way it was shot. It was a great disappointment to me because it seemed like such a great set-up ruined by shoddy camera work and editing.
Rick, I want to re-read your Wall-E review. I'll go check it out now that I've seen it. And yes, I remarked to Kimberly that she was right about Boyle's style, I hadn't paid enough attention.
Also, the photorealism and the cutesy-cutesy goes towards my objections as well. Like I said, Bambi and Nemo were cutesy in their own self contained worlds and Wall-E and EVE were set against a desolate and depressing dead Earth of the future, running into things and getting hilariously (that's irony) struck by lightening. It just mix well for me.
Marilyn - I still want that picture!
I'll see what I can dig up.
And isn't Cillian a, well, silly name? I keep thinking he's a blonde female pop singer whenever I see it.
All I know is, in four years I'm going to make sure I send something special To Cillian, on His 37th Birthday.
I think I watched part of Sunshine on cable not too long ago. I thought it was stylish and intriguing, but then I got bored and shut it off. I came back near the end when one of the guys offed himself. By then, I'd missed too much.
But Kimberly, remember, as I said to Bill, I liked the whole movie up until that ending and only disliked that because of the way it was shot. It was a great disappointment to me because it seemed like such a great set-up ruined by shoddy camera work and editing.
Well your longer review didn't make that very clear to me. I had problems with some aspects of the ending as well but to dismiss the entire film for that seems shortsighted to me. But that's just me.
I also don't find Cillian's name funny. It's an Irish name I've heard before on a few occasions. But I'm 50% Irish so that's probably why I don't find it silly.
I had problems with some aspects of the ending as well but to dismiss the entire film for that seems shortsighted to me. But that's just me.
Sorry, but the ending is pretty important so if it's not done well, which it wasn't in my opinion, then that does have bearing on its overall impact. I don't think that's being especially shortsighted. Anyway, I did like a lot of it and have already reassessed Boyle's stylistic choices based on your first comment, so thanks again for that.
Sunshine gets points from me just because Michelle Yeoh is in it. Not my favorite Boyle (that would be Trainspotting), but I saw it just before I saw Slumdog Millionaire just to keep on top of his career which I've followed since the beginning.
Favorite Cillian Murphy, Breakfast on Pluto, but my favorite Irish director, Mr. Jordan.
I was just saying the other day, in the offline world, maybe the reason I'm so disappointed by so many new movies is because I'm generally seeing the "big" ones, not ones like Pluto that you mention or The Italian Job that Kimberly mentioned a little while back and is in my queue. I think I've been seeing the wrong movies. And there are so many foreign language I'm missing. I'm going to push more of those to the top of my queue. I've had my fill for the time being of the new "big" movies.
I think Cillian Murphy is a really terrific actor. I guess he's good looking, but in an odd, otherworldly way that made the idea of himm playing a physicist make perfect sense to me.
And hell, I even thought Chris Evans was good in Sunshine, and he's stereotypically handsome. I had no problems with the casting in that movie.
Oh, and I'm, like, at least 80 per cent Irish, so I think Cillian's a cool name.
Hey Marilyn's the one that said it was silly not me. I just made a pun based on that Gillian movie. I think Marilyn hates Irish people.
Which Italian Job did Kimberly write about? Good God, I hope it was the original with Michael Caine and not that waste of time with... whoever was in that waste of time.
I was happy to see Michelle Yeoh included among the cast of Sunshine but felt the opportunity to use her in a non-heroic swordplay situation was entirely wasted. I liked 2/3 of the movie a lot and felt letdown by a finish that seemed like a bodycount thriller.
I got hip to Danny Boyle when he was writing scripts for Cracker, still some of the best "cinema" I've ever seen and it was made for television. If you haven't seen the original series, I recommend it with all my might and mien.
And he also directed two episodes of my favorite British detective Morse.
BTW, since I was talking about new movies it's safe to assume Kimberly was talking about the new one. Apparently you two disagree.
Post a Comment