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

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1517 of them)

Anthony I'm not trying to deny cliche, just trying to ferret out where it bugged you in this film -- but yr kinda getting piled on, so don't worry about spelling it out or anything. You're definitely right about the "relative scale of cinema" part -- I mean, 90% of films are made of nothing but rearrangements of conventions, and we're all content to enjoy and talk about superhero movies or romantic comedies without saying "I thought it was kinda obvious how that thing his uncle told him helped him win the final battle" or "I thought the part where they met cute was a little formulaic" or whatever. (That former's a good example, actually: I think my difference between "cliche" and "narrative convention" is the difference between when the hero thinks back on what his uncle said and you groan, and when the hero thinks back on what his uncle said and you just understand the connection at face value.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:04 (nineteen years ago)

haha, maybe! i dunno i just got a "omg NY was nuked, no more babies, isnt that terrible!" --- it doesn't go beyond the cliches in that department really. i mean, children's voices at the end? it's just cloying...

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:06 (nineteen years ago)

"xpost -- Shakey, are you keeping the air strikes in account?"

hmm you have a good point there but assuming characters get killed isn't the same as showing them being picked off - in terms of supporting-cast-whose-deaths-you-don't-see I was thinking of the rich dude and the gypsy. Marika (sp?) may have been my favorite character.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:07 (nineteen years ago)

What's a cliche but a truism that's become horribly apparent?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:08 (nineteen years ago)

rofl at "The Cleaner."

I think Ryan is getting at part of the problem I have with these types of movies, which is that the second you start taking on some political pretensions (which it'd be really facetious to claim this movie didn't), I start holding it to a higher standard than I do, say, Crank.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:09 (nineteen years ago)

Anthony this is why I have stopped reading reviews entirely until after I've seen the movie. With music it's different, somebody can talk about an album for a whole page and I still don't really have "it". Movies on the other hand are so much about narrative and, like nabisco says, the rearranging of tried n true filmic furniture, that even if no actual spoilers are given it's impossible not to erect a model of what you think it's going to be like in your mind, and if you're kind of excited about it, it is very very hard - in my experience - for it to live up to what you've been imagining. Which is why I really lucked out with this one, the only reason I went is because I'd locked myself out and my roommates had just gone to the Ritzy to watch it.

Ryan I think somebody else linked to an interview where they said the blood on the lens thing just happened by accident and they decided to carry on with it.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:10 (nineteen years ago)

Reading reviews beforehand doesn't really affect whether I liked the movie or not, but it obviously does alter what I feel the desire to point out about the film to people after the fact.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:11 (nineteen years ago)

Re: political messages, for me the great strength of this movie is that it SHOWS rather than TELLS, even when they're re-creating scenes from Abu Ghraib, it's just put there in front of you. The world they've set up has nothing to do with Iraq, so there's no one-to-one-correspondence being claimed for anything.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:13 (nineteen years ago)

It could be argued that actually re-creating images of Abu Gharib is just as much a "TELL" as a character saying "Abu Gharib, yo."

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

Though I was more annoyed by the TELL involving Pink Floyd.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:15 (nineteen years ago)

Pink Floyd make everything m ore annoying.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

It could be argued that actually re-creating images of Abu Gharib is just as much a "TELL" as a character saying "Abu Gharib, yo."

Yeah, by someone WHO IS BATSHIT CRAZY.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

i liked the newspaper that went something like "Russia detonates Nuclear Bomb. Kazakstan annihilated!"

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:18 (nineteen years ago)

Dystopian science fiction is inherently political, no? Come on, dude.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

Theo's "London 2012" sweatshirt was a nice touch.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

The political message seems to bve look at how good people are at doing terrible things to eachother even in the face of salvation.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

Also, this is barely a sci-fi film, right?

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:21 (nineteen years ago)

But... it's in the future.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:21 (nineteen years ago)

what about star wars?

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:23 (nineteen years ago)

Romantic comedy.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:24 (nineteen years ago)

I love scifi films that take place mainly in the countryside, there aren't many.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:24 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe it's a war movie. It has battles and guns like Black Hawk Down.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

Also, this is barely a sci-fi film, right?

Sure it is! Speculative fiction, anyway. It's much more sci-fi then, say, Alien, which is just a horror movie in space.

― Charlie Brown (kenan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

waht?

dune and star wars and logan's run are all totally pastoral you senile doosh

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

also deep space completely counts as the countryside wtf

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:28 (nineteen years ago)

"Sleeper" takes place almost entirely in the countryside.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:29 (nineteen years ago)

xxpost I said barely.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:30 (nineteen years ago)

I think I said upthread that the Abu Ghraib image was one of two or three details that point a big finger outside of the film in a somewhat jarring way, but that one totally works for me, because of what happens if you follow out the thought: you think "Abu Ghraib image," but thinking it through reminds you that that's a control and interrogation method used by our military, and probably others, and so maybe it's not really jarring to imagine they're using this extant control method in the world of the film, and ... suddenly you've been led to this gut-punch horrifying reminder that what you've filed away as "Abu Ghraib image" is not a specific event, and is somewhat commonplace, not necessarily any more out-of-place in this future than the bomb detectors at government buildings.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

Silent Runnings!

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:32 (nineteen years ago)

Srsly having the characters move after a few minutes to better frame THE PIG FROM A PINK FLOYD COVER think about that

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

it's all a continuum. "science fiction" and "weepy romance" are the extremes whereas stuff like "romantic comedy", "war film", "retarded action film", "SNL comedy," "tony scott film", etc are in the middle somwehere.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:34 (nineteen years ago)

"retarded action" and "tony scott" is kinda redundant.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:35 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, but nobody says "oh cool, Pink Floyd!" It's just there. I mean, they also framed a shot to include "Guernica", should they have cropped that out?

TOMBOT, the desert is not the countryside.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

I am actually psyched that my music nerdiness has waned to the point where even after it was explained, I still don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about re: the Pink Floyd thing.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

(I was thinking more of eXistenZ)*

*the exact moment everyone stops listening to what I have to say about movies

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:38 (nineteen years ago)

it works better if you just think of it in traditional "when pigs fly" terms.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:38 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.batterseapowerstation.org.uk/floyd/animals1.jpg

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

I didn't notice the PF thing, cos I don't like PF.

I get the idea I'm just gibbering in the corner while you lot talk seinsibly.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, the coolest thing about that bit -- thematically, visually, generally -- was that the guy sits and eats lunch with Guernica hanging over the table.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

it was all I could do not to sing along to King Crimson during that bit.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

Haha I thought the Pink Floyd reference was too heavy-handed.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

Though the broken David's prosthetic-style support was neat, too.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (nineteen years ago)

No, I know there was a shot in the movie that looked like the cover to Animals thanks to the magic that is this thread, but I couldn't actually tell you which shot in the movie that was and it certainly didn't register while I was watching the movie.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

i thought the pink floyd pig was absolute genius: dude saving as much of western art from the chaos as he can OF COURSE is into canon-rock!

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:42 (nineteen years ago)

I thought the pig was a reference to some BritArt installation I'd never heard of.

i dunno i just got a "omg NY was nuked, no more babies, isnt that terrible!" --- it doesn't go beyond the cliches in that department really.

Is it a stretch to argue that those aren't the meat of the story, and thus their relative superficiality is irrelevant?

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

The film follows a linear narrative structure, and, as in any film that follows a linear narrative structure, there are only a certain number of combinations of tropes and patterns that it can employ without the underlying story architecture falling apart completely. Any movie that is attempting to be linear and has an ignorance of certain basic tenants of storytelling will just be a mess, or at the very least deeply unsatisfying. The path to avoiding cliche is through texture, detail and character. The underlying structure of a film can be millenia old (indeed, the underlying structure of most films IS millenia old), and still feel brand new to an audience if the smaller aspects are handled with thoughtfulness and invested with originality. A writer's not concealing anything from the audience when they do this, they're making the profoundly familiar resonate in new ways.

I have been reading McKee.

― chap (chap), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

I read the Pink Floyd pig @ Battersea (i.e. "Ark of the Arts") as the bureaucrats of teh future holding up Pink Flody as revered, canonical British artists whose work must be preserved alonside Picasso et al. -- which I found wryly amusing and kind of apt in its banality.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (nineteen years ago)

BritArt = YBA

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

I just thought of it as a visual pun, exposing both the desperation of the collector and the depravity of the uber-wealthy. I know nothing about Animals. I just hate PF.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

I just got scared that, when they actually moved to another position to better frame the pig between the characters, we had a musical segue coming or something.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

Skipping 1417 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.