Arrival (2016): Denis Villeneuve, Amy Adams

would hatevote

nolan would win in a landslide tbf

Iirc the way that Chiang describes it is that one can conceive of one's entire life, but cannot engage in activity to change or alter the outcome, because the two states of conception and action are one and the same..

Interesting to think about. I can't comprehend what it would be like to be a Heptapod except as a kind of split consciousness. One part of you is acting in time, while the other part of you is seeing the whole succession of actions from sideways-on. It's hard to imagine combining the two perspectives, since action in time seems like it requires a sense of the world as containing opportunities, affordances, routes along which to project possible actions. The sideways-on view seems to disillusion those things. Not that it's a problem for the movie to keep it mysterious. It's more about provoking the idea.

Yeah, I am chronically giving away my copies of the Chiang so I never have it on hand. But iirc, in the story, Louise describes the heptapod's behaviour as almost like a kind of performance. They know what will happen already, and the actions they take are more like cursory rituals toward the inevitable.

It certainly was thought-provoking in more than a 'what-if' sort of way, I found myself thinking about my own life and the inevitable conclusion of this activity or that, and how "learned wisdom" would inform, for example, where I'd go after work and when I'd leave to go home, or whatever.

maybe we should poll the worst Self-Important Statement filmmakers of the 21st century
― not all those who chunder are sloshed (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 21 November 2016 12:32 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

von trier or noé surely

does it bother anyone else that in the movie Louise begins having visions of her daughter immediately after she first exchanges written language with the heptapods? at this point the only symbols they've shared with her are their names, but apparently this minimal contact is enough to alter her fundamental perception of time. iirc in the Chiang story her temporal leapfrogging doesn't begin until after she's had several sessions with the aliens and sufficient time to immerse herself in their language. much of the story's impact comes from the way its structure echoes her mental state, and the movie sacrifices some of this impact (and believability) by relegating the daughter narrative to a series of conventional 'flashbacks'.

I also find it odd that she couldn't remember what she said to the Chinese general, given that she experiences all moments of her post-contact life simultaneously. that scene only really makes sense if you assume she's caught in a spooky mental time travel feedback loop that isn't invoked at any other point in the film and that contradicts the way she supposedly perceives time.

― memories of a cruller (unregistered), Sunday, November 20, 2016 9:01 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Otm, these were the only things that actually bothered me in the movie, especially the former. Going in having read the story, it felt like they were way too eager to get to the 'twist'. It could have been done by just inserting those scenes without any explanation, but instead they made it clear (or at least very strongly implied) she was experiencing them in the 'present' (holding her head, people asking her what's wrong, etc).

yeah those were obv mistakes imo, in the imdb goof plot hole sense but more importantly the bad storytelling choices sense

This was decent, I guess I need to read the story cause from what people are saying it sounds like all the not-so-good stuff is stuff the filmmakers added?

dude's random midfilm exposition voiceover was shameless

http://i.imgur.com/cXLzaEV.jpg

I couldn't stop thinking about Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure when the General Shang gave the future Louise the answers for the past Louise.

What was the Sanskrit word for war and needing another cow? I didn't make that bit out.

If Louise's book was a best seller, then wouldn't everybody who read it and learned to translate Heptapod acquire the 'weapon' of their language? Or was it just her 'cause she went on the ship and directly interacted with Costello?

This shat all over Interstellar, damn that was some annoying garbage.

This shat all over Interstellar, damn that was some annoying garbage.

Life is way too short to ever watch another Christopher Nolan movie.

I could watch the new Nolan film, or I could rewatch Memento or The Prestige. Seems Jonathan is the Nolan to watch.

If Louise's book was a best seller, then wouldn't everybody who read it and learned to translate Heptapod acquire the 'weapon' of their language?

I guess, but presumably it's still wicked hard to learn

You only have to learn just enough to let the precog kick in and take you the rest of the way.

really enjoyed this. pretty sentimental at the end, but also really needed something this optimistic at around this point; with so many questions about the morality of even continuing to reproduce knowing what might be coming soon (though of course this film also posits a humanity that will be around in 3000 years to help once we all learn Heptapod). mainly I've always been violently allergic to the entire post-Heinlein school of time travel paradox / split timeline science fiction, favoring simultaneity / fixity like Primer or Slaughterhouse 5 so this was refreshing

my favorite album last year was 'New Songs of the Humpback Whale'; noise removal software has enabled a quantum leap forward in the clarity of underwater recordings, allowing you to subtract out any splashes or rumbling artifacts -- that CD doesn't sound like you're in scuba gear 100 feet from a whale, it sounds like you are somehow in an auditorium 10 feet away from a whale. I kind of knew it was money in the bank for immanent hollywood alien sound design but I'm glad it was this film that did it, and I was also really impressed with the way it was used in the actual score during the first approach. it is actually quite a trick, getting away with using whale song in music (I do own those Paul Winter records but mainly to make fun of them, and even the Hovhaness piece lets the orchestra lay out for the solos)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsaRJ4j4xIo

actually looks like what I assumed was whale song was actually spontaneous vocalizations by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, recorded on an iPhone while he was listening to a rough mix of Johansson's score! totally thought it was whale song.

Well, in fairness, they may mean "We will be by in 3000 years to retrieve the calcium from your bones, turns out bones will be useful for what we'll be up to then, and when you want bones in 5016, Earth's the place to go!"

At a certain point, I did lean over to say "half of this film is excellent and the other half reminds me of my least favourite parts of Interstellar and Gravity".

My companion (later, because she's more polite) also pointed out that there's no effing way you'd send a particle physicist there, that's what anthropologists are for.

Reminded me a lot of China Mieville's Embassytown thematically, though obvioulsy not as complex or richly realised. A bit more depth and ambiguity than your typical blockbuster Hollywood SF though. Loved the musical cues for the Heptapods.

What about it reminded you of Embassytown?

i thought this was very good. certainly better and more affecting than Interstellar

What about it reminded you of Embassytown?

― mh

A plot revolving around weird alien semantics.

ah, I was thinking of the city & the city and had forgotten I have yet to finish embassytown

I missed the twist!

Kind of a weird experience.

Thought it was a decent film, but when it ended I was like "I wonder if those aliens were supposed to be a metaphor for cancer or smth

lol

just came back from seeing this. as far as the recent spate of spacesuit movies go, I think this could be the best of the bunch. didn't quite beat Gravity in 3D on a decent screen in terms of outerbody thrills but it was really well done and I liked how they managed to avoid gratuitous conflict or peril.
A smarter Independence Day and a simpler Slaughterhouse 5.

That whalesong album mentioned upthread is really something!

I found this interview with the movie's cinematographer interesting.

Amy Adams wins National Board of Review for best actress.

http://lithub.com/ted-chiang-on-arrival-the-boredom-of-moviemaking-and-the-princess-bride/

sorry, posted that before reading it. hadnt realised it was such a short interview.

This really was a beautiful looking movie, the first of Villeneuve's I've seen, and the third shot by Young after Selma and A Most Violent Year. The scene when they're first entering the ship, and Renner is running his hand along the surface of it, has so much texture you can almost reach out and touch it yourself.

Before the movie we saw a trailer for Will Smith's upcoming pile of nonsense that made me laugh out loud in the theater.

(Is this the first awards contender toplined by two people who appeared on Joss Whedon TV shows?)

ha i know doesn't that Will Smith movie look fucking terrible? i can't wait to see it!

Someone needs to fan-edit the trailer as a wacky comedy, because it basically looks like "What if Inside Out was a prestige drama?"

"What if Will Smith was the prophet of a revived polytheism?"

ha i know doesn't that Will Smith movie look fucking terrible? i can't wait to see it!

The first time I saw the trailer I thought it was a parody, but then I realized there was no way Will Smith would do something that funny, and I just got depressed.

OMG it turns out that this Will Smith movie is EVEN STUPIDER than the trailers made it appear.

http://www.avclub.com/review/will-smith-goes-glum-twisty-treacle-collateral-bea-247387

With the company in dire financial straits, Howard’s minority partners Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet), and Simon (Michael Peña) conspire to wrest control by hiring three struggling actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore) to randomly sneak up on him on the subway or while he’s eating and pretend to be personifications of death, love, and time while an unscrupulous private eye secretly records their interactions and doctors the footage so that it looks like Howard is talking to himself. (Yes, this is really the premise.) A reader might presume that this high-concept ensemble gaslighting would result in farce and disaster and not, say, valuable life lessons and a triple twist ending in the Sea Of Trees vein. But what this reader doesn’t realize is that it is really the minority partners who need to have sophomorically written conversations with abstract concepts while standing in the public way.

Over-sharing divorcé Whit has lost the respect of his daughter because he cheated on his ex-wife; high-strung Claire wants to have a baby because she is a woman; shy Simon is actually, seriously terminally ill. And perhaps at this point, this reader—this theoretical reader—might guess that the life-changing actor spirit guides were in fact hired by Howard, and it is the partners who are being gaslit into a better understanding of themselves. Collateral Beauty isn’t that clever. The script, by Allan Loeb (The Switch, Here Comes The Boom), seems like satire at first, with its offhand references to previous failed interventions in Howard’s life, like an ayahuasca shaman who was flown from Peru at great expense. But it is lethally sincere when it comes to bathos and psychobabble.

So it's a reverse Christmas Carol?

Christmas Carol as Big Con?

smith has a weakness for these massively dud "gift of the magi" style high concept movies

i mean who among us can forget SEVEN POUNDS

Will Smith has literally never been in a good movie

Six Degrees of Separation

Men in Black, Too (not Men in Black 2)

my favorite album last year was 'New Songs of the Humpback Whale'; noise removal software has enabled a quantum leap forward in the clarity of underwater recordings, allowing you to subtract out any splashes or rumbling artifacts -- that CD doesn't sound like you're in scuba gear 100 feet from a whale, it sounds like you are somehow in an auditorium 10 feet away from a whale. I kind of knew it was money in the bank for immanent hollywood alien sound design but I'm glad it was this film that did it, and I was also really impressed with the way it was used in the actual score during the first approach. it is actually quite a trick, getting away with using whale song in music (I do own those Paul Winter records but mainly to make fun of them, and even the Hovhaness piece lets the orchestra lay out for the solos)

I don't know when I will get around to seeing Arrival (I'm terrible at actually going to/watching movies yet at the same time I listen to the film scores of everything new that catches my fancy) -- but I have a copy of the film score for this and it absolutely floored me, gave me chills, my film score of the year I think.

men in black 3 was ok but not cos of smith or anything

ali is a good movie

rong

BAD BOYS 2

jesus

off the topic of will smith, I gotta say time paradox isn't really my favorite scifi topic - it brings up universal ideas on the nature of time, but with scifi I'm usually looking for specific ideas reflecting the point in time the movie was made/story was written

so basically I think something like Ex Machina or even Westworld (for all its shortcomings) is more interesting as 2010s scifi than Interstellar or Arrival, because what is AI and what are robots and how do we understand those questions right now is more interesting than "from olden days philosophers have pondered whether time is indeed linear or cyclical and whether all events have a causal explanation etc etc"

I went in to this only knowing "Amy Adams, linguist, makes first contact with aliens." That plus the gorgeous look of it was enough to get me excited. I kinda had hoped it was going to focus more on the difficulty of truly communicating with/understanding an alien life form. The time loop stuff actually struck me as kind of unnecessary? It bugged me the same way the ending of Donnie Darko bugs me. Either way, this was dope and I told virtually everyone I know to go see it.

There's a cool Song Exploder episode about the score:

http://songexploder.net/arrival

finally saw this; liked it a lot although renner was kind of clunky. ditto on what the hell was whittaker's accent.

when they started drawing i was all like o shit the aliens are sigur ros

i appreciated the fact that, contra chekhov, the canary didn't keel over

between this and Rogue One it's been a banner year for bizarre Forest Whitaker performances