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

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

helluva ride till then.

Certainly this one collapses a lot more quietly than "Sunshine" does. They do share a few similarities, though.

A bigger mystery to me is, per the movie's contentious release, is how it ended up a Netflix property yet is not afaict on Netflix.

distributed by Paramount in North America and Netflix for international

that reminds me of how alias grace, partially funded by the canadian broadcasting company, was until recently available on netflix everywhere but canada.

This was fine as a mishmash of canonical sf film ideas but not much more than that. Was tripped out that i was just reading about the alzabo in sword of the lictor prior to watching this, which contains a near identical scene. Glad it got made, even tho it wasnt as good as ex machina.

Garland: ..."The first conversation I had when I was meeting actors or having production meetings was that the film is about various things and various themes but the basic underlying principle is the journey from suburbia to psychedelia. We’re going to start in suburbia and end in psychedelia. That was the underlying principle."

I think this is a shame because this is exactly how it comes across (which I don't particularly find interesting) - more concerned with looking like a scrambled kaleidoscopic light show at the end rather than having any coherent logical thread informing/constraining the visual and narrative conclusion. I liked the hacky 'human hox gene' thing with the plants, more of that kind of idea would've been a positive thing, I think. Although it seemed to dabble in many questions/themes without giving particular weight to any one.

profoundly dumb "smart" movie here; basically a genderflipped 60's b-movie with pretentions of Malickness/2001/Stalker. might've been more interesting with an eighth of the budget. Acting was often laughable, machismo of all characters was doofy, script was a chopped up mess, even most of the effects weren't particularly good.

It's definitely a weird mess. Sort of the opposite of "Ex Machina," which I thought was smart, tight, well-acted, with good effects.

garland wrote the script (iirc) based on one reading of the book, which he purposefully didn't return to during the writing process, and the book is heavily inspired by stalker et al anyway, so no wonder the movie feels like a chopped up mess cuz it's basically photocopies of photocopies

I loved the Southern Reach trilogy but have absolutely no interest in seeing this. Should I?

I wouldn't go out of your way, no

if you wanna see a vaguely trippy remix of things alex garland half-remembered from the first book and other stuff he made up himself which don't add a great deal to the story, go for it

some of the visuals are cool, tho, and as someone said upthread it, i think, it nails the book's descriptions of the southern reach itself

It's a goofy mess, but so many films I liked this year (ahem Sorry to Bother You) were. Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina.

stby was a mess, yeah, but it had a very clear point of view and it was entertainingly delivered

annihilation was a series of sludgy vignettes and occasionally arresting visuals that added up to... not much

Annihilation and Sorry to Bother You are good analogues in that both are artfully rendered disappointing implosions with poorly defined ideas, bad execution and a desire to tell a lot more than they show.

I'd hesitate to mention them in the same sentence.

I liked Annihilation, mostly because I like Stalker-like introspective adventure-mysteries. Its a bit surprising that it was immediately critically dismissed given its a film about competent women in STEM careers, utterly flattening the Bechtel test. The soundtrack is superb (and worth a d/l). Yes, its the worst Janet Jason Leigh performance of the past decade, and the set pieces ape later day Pink Floyd album artwork or lesser H.R. Giger. But I was happy to be along for the ride.

I loved Sorry to Bother You, which I finally saw last night (the US blu is $10). It's intentionally shambolic, not unlike Michel Gondry, but it has a lot more going on under the hood, and I think its going to inspire a generation of filmmakers. I will rewatch, but it really does a remarkable high-wire act of exposing the lives of the working poor, critiquing modern capitalism, and remaining laugh out loud funny throughout.

Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina.

no way

xp: That said, Tessa Thomson is great in both, in wholly different roles. She may just save Westworld S3 from disappearing up its own arse. .

I am enjoying how much everything in the last 2-3 years, despite being terrible, is really playing up how much we mindlessly were giving men money and accolades for empty fucking visions.

It's a goofy mess, but so many films I liked this year (ahem /Sorry to Bother You/) were. Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn /Ex-Machina/.

/Vastly preferable to the stiff, solemn Ex-Machina./

no way

Dirty Work, yum

lol whoops that's what i get for posting from mobile

i liked this well enough. I certainly found the visuals very memorable. I read the book afterward, and liked that as well. I canj't say I'm enjoying the second book much at all though.

more for the weird fiction thread but yeah...

as a reader of the weird vandemeer is extraordinary - he's read everything and thought as deeply as anyone living about what makes it tick and out of that has developed some really deep and powerful concepts of his own.

as a writer of the weird... he's either not interested in spinning a yarn or writing compelling sentences, or not capable. the first southern reach book is probably as close as he's ever come to doing justice to his own vision.

I preferred Borne to the Southern Reach books. Seemed like he was having more fun

def seemed like he was having more fun but also like the pages evaporated as you read them... left absolutely no impression

sanpaku you may have misunderstood the bechtel test, considering portman's only apparent motivation is figuring out what happened to her man

dykes to watch out fort

sic did u make it to Fun Home the musical when it went up here? I saw it on Broadway and liked it quite a bit

ehhh, I think Portman's character goes on the expedition as a sort of penance. Not strictly for her infidelity, but there's something inherently broken with her life. not that I'm pulling that out of thin air, it's pretty much spelled out

I appreciated this a lot more than others here, but perhaps because the openness in the plot worked for me -- it's a group that's looking for answers and the area they go into seems purpose-made to dissect the sense of self

I assume you mean Funt Home, the bioplay about the loveable Candid Camera creator

xp: The Bechtel test criterion, as I understand it, is is simply that two women talk about something other than a man. That so few movies pass even this minimal test is an indictment of the film industry.

Whether Portman's character is motivated by the disappearance of Issac's character doesn't really enter into it.

it’s called the bechdel test, folks

Is this the test to determine whether a particular movie has the right ratio of white roux and milk?

Sorry, not the most important "bechXel" in my life experience. Also, I'll blame muscle memory for all my sins.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/88/Bechtel_logo.svg/440px-Bechtel_logo.svg.png

I believe thats the color the company wants to leave the seas with...

Fun Home is great but left me a bawling mess

oh yeah sorry too many nights studying at (the same) bechtel hall

haven't read books

really liked this, would happily fight most of ye about it tomorrow.

ito ex machina, arrival, this comparisons they were all good-to-great tbh

thought themes/metaphors were obvious and done very plainly, but more than reasonably deftly. maybe a long time since i found a 'do u see' message within a psychological/fantasy refreshing and resonant as opposed to being a showy frustrating reveal

portman is a bad actress tho this is true

good book that was screaming to be turned into a movie.

now that I've read the book I find this sentiment baffling. Like Naked Lunch or Crash or The Story of Your Life, I feel the opposite - that it's screaming *not* to be made into a movie. so much internalized narrative, with a fixation on the inaccuracy of perceptions/senses, and the non-linear structure (ok I guess you could just jump-cut between a lot of flashbacks but...)

The book is way better, obviously.