'Children of Men', the new Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi flick

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no your mistake there is actually in line with all the reviewers panning this because they can't keep up

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:31 (nineteen years ago)

As I type this in London in the middle of January, I'm not sure why immigrants are flooding into England NOW.

― chap (chap), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:36 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, i mean this was very carefully and clearly NOT an "in a world" movie. it just rolled into itself and laid out the important details on the fly. would they have rather had a lame text-crawl at the beginning?

actually who cares what morons would have rather seen! haha zap! take that, retards!

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

As much as I enjoyed watching this movie and was rooted to my seat by it the entire time, I am really bothered by a couple of unusual things, a day later:

a. I don't particularly want to see it again.
b. I don't particularly want to talk about it to anyone who hasn't already seen it.
--> C. This is because instead of thinking about the awesome parts of this film, I am stuck pondering relatively tiresome metaphysical bullshit, because (I think!) the ending was so open-ended as to be a poorly thought out cock-up.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:42 (nineteen years ago)

hero suddenly revealed to have been mortally wounded 20 mins ago is a klassik device.

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...), January 16th, 2007 4:20 PM. (Dr Morbius) (later)

agreed. this was one of the weaker points in the movie and it's an easy-out for a redemptive arc.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, the ending was the only part I didn't like.

I did go see it again, and while I noticed a lot of things I hadn't before, once you know what's going to happen it's not nearly as good.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

would they have rather had a lame text-crawl at the beginning?

There was a text crawl at the beginning! (on the tv screen at the coffee shop)

― baron kickass von awesomehausen (nickalicious), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:49 (nineteen years ago)

I think I hate movies with poorly thought out cock-ups at the end. God Dammit.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

The only way the ending could have been better is if she didn't name the kid Dylan (which was OK, but a little distracting) and if we were left waiting and hoping for tomorow to come instead of witnessing its arrival (faith and hope and all that).

While the unknown wound, like the naming of the child, was a little distracting and cliche, two aspects of his death were important: 1) how Kee and Theo each handled his dying, and 2) Kee left alone with the child in a little boat in the fog on the ocean.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

i thought it was pretty obvious that luc shot him!

i liked the ending in a self-frustrating way, like a john fowles novel or something. enough tenuous information is out there in the film (that the tomorrow is a hospital ship, that the ship will take them to experts on the azores) that the ship actually showing up makes all that stuff true enough. maybe the ship patches theo up, maybe they take care of kee and the baby, maybe not. but why wouldn't it all be true?

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

not to get all predator-ship on you guys, but isn't the fill-in-the-blank nature of the ending is a realization of the MESSAGE of STRUGGLE and HOPE etc etc, like, you can have a happy ending here if you want one.

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

I don't see the ending as a cock-up. I think it was well thought out.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

This is why I think it feels like a short. Very simple concept that it follows single-mindedly, and the abrupt and open ending.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 16:58 (nineteen years ago)

after every other thing that happens in the film the idea that the human project exists and is this big happy family of altruistic, trustworthy, competent do-gooders living on paradise island seems frighteningly naive, and now Kee and Dylan's last reliable custodian has bled to death. Hope and redemption my ass. Not sure this particular brand of the human race is exactly salvageable or worth salvaging anyway, seriously. I told Ally on the way home I think the crew of the Tomorrow is probably shape-shifting aliens and the ship itself is a camouflaged UFO (that Jasper saw over the heath). I mean, I can have THAT ending too.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, in no way was the ending in any sort of way a cock-up. UH xpost

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

(xpost) I don't think it's naivete that drives them to the Human Project. Obviously the Fishes are out, and going public in a fascist state means handing Kee and Dylan over to the Government. That's out. So you have hiding out in England alone without any support (and you probably keep running because people are going to betray you and people are going to find out) or you have the Human Project.

They're fucked, but they have to hope in something. Theo has one pretty decent excuse to go to the Human Project: Julian. He can trust her the way she ultimately trusted him. That seems to be one of the major points of the movie that the most elevated human ideas of love and hope and trust and empathy are personal and not political.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

Just a light in the distance rather than the actual ship! It would have made all the difference to me. Bah.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

But the ship is just as ominous as leaving her in the middle of the ocean.

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

yeah a light might have been better--although wouldn't that be even more baldly symbolic?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

It's a fable; seeing the ship as anything but the best chance at salvation just means, well, you read the news. (ie, I said "well, that'll be a voyage of the damned")

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

also i like that you don't know nothing about the human project. they could be good, they could just as likely be bad (i like how owen warns her to keep the child close)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

and it's pretty clear that owen dies. when the hero of a movie is bleeding like crazy in the last scene, having just redeemed himself, and nods off with a little smile... that is a death scene.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

You really wouldn't even have to be taking it as an allegory to current events though--I mean, you just had to watch the movie to be even vaguely mistrustful of whoever is on the boat, or at the other end of that boat ride. (ie what slocki just said too I suppose!! xpost and also LOL @ "that is a death scene")

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

Is it the fact that the ending is open-ended that bothers you? Or is it the fact that they go to the Human Project without any real intel?

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

it always bothers me when a movie ends without the characters having properly gathered intel.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

It's just too determined. The feeling when the ship arrives, the way it's shot, the music - it's comforting. That it ends so abruptly takes a little of the restful pleasure away from it, but it's a dénoument all the same. I had forgotten that he says to keep the baby close. Maybe a couple more reminders like that, or more pot-fuelled arguments over whether the Human Project were good guys or bad guys and I would have liked the ending as-is.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

Basically I saw no reason to believe that Gene Hackman was on that boat so I'm pretty sure this movie sucked.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

Here's what hapens on the deck of the Tomorrow

http://www.cswu.cz/music/characters/medals.jpg

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

actually it was

http://www.phillyist.com/attachments/philly_nicole/mission-accomplished.jpg

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

Euai:

Didn't get the feeling of determined completion from that ending that you did. Not at all. The ship looked like a mirage. It didn't look real, and I don't think it was supposed to look real. The men on deck were posed in way-too-obviously-cartoonish poses of "brave discovery" and didn't seem to be pointing towards the girl and baby, a scant 100 feet away. They seemed to be gesturing towards an indefinable something off on the very distant horizon. Towards "tomorrow" or something similarly abstract?

I don't think we were meant to take the final shots as literally as all that.

― Adam Beales (Pye Poudre), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

I completely disagree. She sees the boat. The boat is real.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.mostlybulldogstuff.com/Zelda_file/whatever%20floats%20your%20boat.jpg

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

Caine pretty much has the Edward G. Robinson role in Soylent Green -- old idealist doomed from the gitgo.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

How awesome would it have been if Dabney Coleman was on the boat.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:46 (nineteen years ago)

It was a predator ship.

(That could also be used on people confused after watching Inland Empire. Actually, never mind, the Lynch rabbits and Nastasja Kinski were on the boat.)

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0362270/004_061-0137.jpg

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

BAM

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

If they have Natasha Kinski's genes on the boat then rabbit genes are superfluous.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

THE HUMAN PROJECT WITH STEVE ZISSOU

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

CHILDREN OF MEN 2: VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:53 (nineteen years ago)

dude can you just fuck owen wilson already & get it over with

― and what (ooo), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:54 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.lumiere.org/films/images/titanic-photo11.jpg

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.thesandpebbles.com/tsp2.jpg

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 18:02 (nineteen years ago)

lol

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

This is why I think it feels like a short. Very simple concept that it follows single-mindedly, and the abrupt and open ending.

Yeah, see, I'm definitely on the side of appreciating this. The goal is to get her to the boat, and that gets accomplished, as much as tasks are accomplished in any contemporary setting. I have not seen that movie where Bruce Willis has to guide Mos Def across fourteen blocks, or whatever, but I'm guessing that their safe arrival doesn't end criminal behavior forever, which seems analogous to what some people in my audience expected from this one: that the unpleasant future would somehow be corrected at the end?

Theo dies in part because every single person who helps them dies. (The airstrikes obviously help with that, but it seems to be underlined when the Russians get shot.) Also: I really liked Sid's death, the sense of hesitance and repulsion on Theo's part as he bashes him. I appreciate seeing a film this suspenseful where the hero doesn't engage in any more action than knocking people with car doors, jump-starting a vehicle, and then showing great distaste in finally actually having to brain someone.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 07:45 (nineteen years ago)

Ahhhhh, Sid. His third-person self-commentary is awesome.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 11:59 (nineteen years ago)

Also, Theo doesn't actually say "baby Diego's a wanker", much to my chagrin - he says "he was a wanker". I can still hear Owen saying my interpretation outloud though.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 12:00 (nineteen years ago)

Also: I really liked Sid's death, the sense of hesitance and repulsion on Theo's part as he bashes him. I appreciate seeing a film this suspenseful where the hero doesn't engage in any more action than knocking people with car doors, jump-starting a vehicle, and then showing great distaste in finally actually having to brain someone.

Yeah, out of the heroes in the movie, who actually carries a weapon? Do we ever see Julian with a weapon? Theo uses a car door and a battery, but carries nothing. Kee: nothing. Jasper: nothing. Miriam: nothing. Merickha: carries nothing, but brandishes a piece of wood in an emergency (poor Sid brings out the worst in everybody). The only unsullied "good-guy" who carries a weapon in the movie is the Georgian(?) refugee who leads them to the boat.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Ahhhhh, Sid. His third-person self-commentary is awesome.

-- Sick Mouthy (sickmouth...), January 17th, 2007 11:59 AM. (Nick Southall) (later)

i dunno, this seemed a little out of place to me.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:54 (nineteen years ago)

For me it worked - Sid's presumably about 50 years old, and perhaps been a policeman all his life. He'd therefore have had a few years of working before all the troubles and immigration issues kicked off, and his job would have turned incredibly unpleasant. He smokes a lot of dope, and herds people into cages for a living. Talking about himself in the third person is probably a reasonably good coping mechanism for this.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

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