Annihilation (2018) -- Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, dir. Alex Garland, based on Jeff VanderMeer's book

they spend some time ruminating on what the granting of desire means and why the zone would do it, iirc

xp Roberto love your take

new board description p much

I'm in the 'this was just fine' camp; I read the first book and it was ok but didn't grip me (just a personal aesthetic reaction to Vandermeer's particular brand of Weird). The freakiest moment for me was Portman sitting on the sofa reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is exactly what I'm reading right now.

The movie goes over the top with the cancer stuff (and also with trying to explain the title), although I can interpret it as being how a biologist would interpret area x.

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that the movie changes the ending of the first Southern Reach novel in a way that shuts down the storylines of the second and third novels ... if the studio wanted a sequel the writers would have to start from scratch.

"another shimmer appeared!" done

I saw this last week on netflix and just read this thread. I had no clue this was a theatrical release, thought it was a netflix original and even for that I thought it was meh. Some parts looked great. I kept expecting Natalie Portman to break into her SNL rap when she was being interrogated post-shimmer.

imo it'd be more apt if she yelled "I am the black swan!"

'begun, these clone wars have'

One point I haven't seen mentioned is that the movie changes the ending of the first Southern Reach novel in a way that shuts down the storylines of the second and third novels ... if the studio wanted a sequel the writers would have to start from scratch.

― Brad C., Thursday, April 5, 2018 9:41 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Alex garland wrote the script after only the first southern reach book was out, wrote it as a standalone

this was fine.

the commentary mentions that the human-shaped plants were directly inspired by Garland being a big fan of the Alan Moore-era Swamp Thing

only listened to 1/3 of it last week but I caught that nugget

Deeply meh.

I thought parts of this were impressive, but not especially entertaining on the whole. I was annoyed by the way it introduced a lot of interesting questions and ideas only to pay them off first with a combination of gore and jump scares, and then finally with an extended 2001-style "woah, man" sequence which mostly felt like a way of distracting from the lack of narrative closure. Some of the effects in the first were intriguing, even if everything still looked a bit to slick and too clean, as is the standard in the CGI age (cringeworthy as the stomach sequence was, both it and some of the other effects could have benefitted from the touch of Tom Savini, if not Cronenberg), and even on those grounds the film mostly becomes a light show by the end. We also don't get nearly enough of Portman and Issac's relationship to care that much about it; like, it is obvious what motivates each of them to go into "The Shimmer" but what we see of their relationship doesn't really set up the emotional payoff that the film is clearly going for.

Haven't seen Ex Machina and I don't know anything about the books, but simply thinking of this film alongside its contemporaries, I vastly preferred Arrival in just about every way.

otm

ex machina >>> annihilation > arrival

imo the range of emotional and even physical expression between the members of the expedition is pretty well thought out. our narrator/protagonist is the least expressive and most guarded, which is a difficult proposition

It's no masterpiece but it's not average either. It's a B+/B movie. What a relief to watch a movie with Hollywood actresses interested in their jobs. And the wild boar/bear hybrid is the most terrifying special effect of the year after Ethan Hawke's drinking Scotch in First Reformed.

I still don't understand the purpose of the narrator's affair with her coworker, and especially of the flashbacks to it during the psychadelia at the end. Was it supposed to be some thanatos/eros fusion thingamadoo? was it supposed to be the trigger for her annihilation? so much writhing of back-muscles.

What if we remade The Thing ... wth digital effects

ex machina >>> annihilation > arrival

― flopson, Monday, June 25, 2018 6:50 PM (two hours ago)

yes

appreciate Alfred’s comment and his blog review, very much on the same plane as my feelings

Re the affair, supposed to cue us to the steaming erotic hotness of Portman, who otherwise spent the movie looking like she was trying to check off a list of items from a shipping list. Clue: it didn't work.
Will forever be angry about the total failure to transfer ANYTHING of the corrupted, febrile tone of the novel to the atmosphere of the film. Just weak, shitty writing and filmmaking. If it came out that Garland had a reader prepare a treatment for him instead of reading the book himself, I would be completely unsurprised.

the affair in this one and the international negotiation in Annihilation feel like they serve the same purpose: a narrative conceit meant to provide a familiar conflict for film to soften the ambiguity of science fiction stories

it’s less of a contribution to the plot with Annihilation. it’s meant to show human impulse or yearning from an otherwise stoic character but doesn’t quite hit.

hrm, do you mean Arrival with the first Annihilation there? cause i thought that the negotiation stuff was just echoing the other themes of the film about communication and jumping to conclusions about the intentions of the people on the other side of the line, etc.

appreciate Alfred’s comment and his blog review, very much on the same plane as my feelings

― mh,

xo

I don’t get where those scenes were meant to portray “erotic hotness” at all, though, unless “woman has sex” is inherently lascivious

it read more of a commentary on military couples and the ambiguity of lost spouses, of a basic human drive the character was addressing without having the external emotional capacity to speak about her need or her waning/conflicted feelings about her missing husband

I did, thanks DC. The short story hit all the points without an international breakdown but it was the addition to make it a full-blown movie. I can’t think of an addition that’d fit better, but it seemed off. Probably just the hazard of being acquainted with a story before seeing the adaptation

the vibe this movie had was so much closer to aliens than solaris that i think they should have just shoved in and gone full-cameron on it. the sinister hypnosis angle from the book could have been grafted onto the movie by making the psychologist a swirly-eyes android.

also swap jennifer jason leigh and natalie portman roles

this reminds me of game of thrones actually, in that the book was a dumb recapitulation of previous topoi of the genre that ultimately subsumed what was original to it in dreck, but holy god move things to a visual medium and it turns out, man , they can get dumber

My review.

Re the affair, supposed to cue us to the steaming erotic hotness of Portman, who otherwise spent the movie looking like she was trying to check off a list of items from a shipping list. Clue: it didn't work.
Will forever be angry about the total failure to transfer ANYTHING of the corrupted, febrile tone of the novel to the atmosphere of the film. Just weak, shitty writing and filmmaking. If it came out that Garland had a reader prepare a treatment for him instead of reading the book himself, I would be completely unsurprised.

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Monday, June 25, 2018 10:03 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok that is a total misread about the affair lol. the movie plays with her uncertainty and guilt related to his disappearance for emotional pull than the book does. will he even come back? was it even him who came back? will he survive? is it still her? i had an affair because i thought my husband was dead (actually i can't remember what the timing of the affair is--is it after he returns?) but now he's not dead/but maybe that wasn't even him/am i even me?

i think it's a successful adaptation, and i think garland took the adaptation very seriously (which is why he took to many liberties with it). first of all, the novel is not febrile! it's extremely clear-eyed and coldly rational throughout. book did this cool thing where you'd shift between being in awe of her deductive genius and thinking she was just paranoid, all mirrored in her own uncertainty. in the film that's all shifted into panic at being attacked by monsters, and anxiety about husband stuff

also swap jennifer jason leigh and natalie portman roles

― Philip Nunez, Monday, June 25, 2018 10:25 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah

What a relief to watch a movie with Hollywood actresses interested in their jobs.

I get that, and even though it shouldn't be in 2018, it is a point in the film's favour. The non-Portman characters could have still used a bit more fleshing out than one of the characters filling in Portman on everyone's backstories, though.

yeah, no, comment not fully thought through with regard to the affair, for some reason I am just irrationally angry with this movie in particular and Portman in general, I feel like she has a monopoly on parts which could be played by far more interesting actors. Would love to have seen Samantha Morton do this, my god.

Just watched this last night, enjoyed it conceptually and visually but I got zero emotional resonance from it.

I wasn't much moved by it either, but Stalker and other movies like this are for me examples of concepts encased in well-wrought forms.

Yeah. I didn't think this was in Stalker's league (what is?), but it's in its junior varsity. I am a fan in general of the new era of arty sci-fi, even though I like some better than others. Besides Garland there's the Shane Carruth movies, Arrival, Under the Skin -- what else? Actually, some parts of Annihilation reminded me of Twin Peaks: The Return, so maybe that belongs in the category too. It does have actual extraterrestrials.

Oh, Black Mirror too obviously. I got tired of it so I don't think of it much, but it's obviously an influence on Garland.

Carruth is on another level but he's too damned exacting to get movies made very often, which bums me out (even though it helps account for the quality)

I enjoyed this film but it definitely had its moments of abject stupidity. Also did not care at all about the Portman backstory/marriage/affair and would have much preferred it playing out as a proper ensemble piece.

Yeah I was confused about the timing of the affair, like someone above said. At first I thought it happened while he was missing and before he came back, but then it became clear it was before he left and was a precipitating event for him volunteering for the mission. Anyway, it felt tacked on, and despite the dialogue claiming some huge connection between her and the other married guy, there was no sign of chemistry on screen. (I realize that subplot/motivation may come from the book, I haven't read it.)

I want no back stories. For one, it makes the films longer.

I haven't seen this yet but I haven't seen a single person who likes that aspect of the movie. Hopefully he jettisons them entirely on the next one (whatever it is)

A movie where the backstory really bothered me was Gravity -- it was like, I don't need to know her motivation beyond trying to stay alive. That's plenty. Similar here, there's plenty to the mystery, and plenty of ways/reasons to get her character to the zone, without the domestic drama.

File this one under "ambitious failure," but I'm not sure if it fails because it's ambitious or rather that its (to my tastes) failures - direction choices, somnambulant acting choices, vagueness masquerading as ambiguously profound script choices - would have been insurmountable no matter its ambitions. Which is a roundabout way of saying this was OK - failure is not always *failure* - but could have been better. (I think it either needed more or ... less?) And as far as ambitious metaphysical sci-fi failures go, it isn't as good as (as I remember it) "The Fountain," let alone "Sunshine," but I'm sure I'll remember it! I like Alfred's (distant) assessment that whatever one thinks of this, it's probably exactly as Alex Garland intended it to be.

ferngully meets prometheus was correct imo

Eh Sunshine collapses at the end in a way shittier way than this did, imo